The Mistress of Whispers, her burning sun-eyes fixed on David, made no grand proclamation, no theatrical flourish. Her denial of dialogue was absolute, her judgment final. With a calm, almost serene motion, she raised a hand, her slender fingers tracing a delicate line across her palm. No tool, no blade, only the sharpened edge of a fingernail, honed by millennia of arcane practice.
A thin, perfectly straight crimson line appeared on her skin, welling up with a single, perfectly spherical drop of blood. It gleamed, a bead of condensed power, impossibly vivid against her pale flesh.
The droplet detached itself, falling with a whisper-soft splash into the black ritual basin. The surface of the inky liquid, which had until then seemed utterly inert, rippled violently. Not a gentle ripple, but an immediate, explosive surge.
