Serenades and Secrets
As the audience applause died down, the hub-hub of voices slowly silenced, and attention shifted to the trio of figures upon the stage. All three were seated on fine wooden chairs, in perhaps the finest amphitheater in the Lady’s Ward. The first notes of a harp float through the air, lonely and drifting. Lost and quiet in the large space. Just like the woman – no, barely a girl – seated in between what must be her two parents.
Even at a distance, under the twilight of what passed as Sigil’s night cycle, the resemblance was striking. Built like her father, but with the aristocratic features of her mother, she exuded an aura of unnatural calm and control, despite her obvious heritage. Soon after, two lyres join the harp, filling the air with a soothing melody as a soft voice begins to fill the space.
“By morn’ light we’ll survive the night… Joined by dreams in candlelight…”
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Candlelight flickered off the genasi’s face. Scratching her chin uncomfortably, she tugged the hood down further over her head, casting one last glance around as she steals out the back of the building. Overhead, lightning crackles sharply, weather in a sky that has no weather, in a sky that is not a sky. Behind her, a scream echoed out of the windows of the building she had just exited from. She couldn’t take it. The rituals and prayers were bad enough. The initiation was plain horrid. Making her way down the deserted street, she could barely make out the crudely staked sign that marked the edge of the area claimed by the Talassans. Once, it had belonged to the Athar, and had a jealously-guarded portal to the Prime Material. Those very same speakers lay crucified, exposed to and struck by unnatural lightning a dozen times each, in the husk of the “temple” behind her. Talos’ servants were growing in power in the Lower Ward, and even the Hardheads were giving them their space. So engrossed in her thoughts, with her head lowered, she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.
With a jolt, she walked into a wall of metal.
A wall of metal that had not been there before, inscribed with the symbol of a lightning bolt crashing into the dirt.
She gulped, as a spiked gauntlet grasped her chin, forcing her gaze up the breastplate to meet the barely-controlled, rage-filled eyes of her father.
“I warned you for the last time, Karina…”
“Please, Father…”
Before she could finish the rest of her sentence, blooming pain erupted from where the gauntlet drew blood on her chin, and her world fell into oblivion.