The Goddess turned her luminous gaze upon the queen once more, and when she spoke, her voice had lost all trace of warmth.
The maternal gentleness that had softened her words moments before hardened into something sharper, colder, more terrible, the voice of a deity who had seen empires crumble and was not afraid to watch another fall.
"My descendant," she said, and each syllable fell like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples of dread across the gathered assembly.
The very air seemed to grow heavy, pressing down upon the shoulders of every elf who knelt upon that mountaintop.
"I had thought so highly of you. In all my centuries of watching over this kingdom, I had believed you to be wiser than any queen who came before. I had trusted your judgment. I had honored your decisions. I had taken pride in calling you blood of my blood, descendant of my lineage, keeper of my sacred trust."
She paused, and the silence that followed was more terrible than any words.
