The gates opened without a sound.
Ysolde stepped out first.
Her long dark-blue hair was braided over one shoulder, and her silver eyes swept once across the summit, the twelve elders, and the stairway below. Then she turned to face the entire Abyss.
Her voice was not loud.
But it reached every corner of Veyra's skull.
"The Abyss Sovereign has arrived."
For a single moment, nothing moved.
Then the Abyss knelt.
THUD!
It began at the top of the stairway with the twelve elders and spread downward like a wave. Grand Elders and Ancestral Elders. The four Abyss Lords. The Chosen, the Wardens, and the Core and Inner Members lining the steps. Then the crowds filling the avenues of Crown City, the Daemons on the rooftops, the balconies, and the walls.
BOOM!
Thousands of knees struck the bone at once.
The sound rolled down the skull like distant thunder.
Simon stood alone at the top of the stairway for less than a breath.
Then he lowered himself onto one knee.
