Raziel stared into the flames of the small campfire crackling in the dark northern woods.
The orange light cast long, shifting shadows across the wet moss and the thick pine trunks. He ignored the freezing night air biting his skin and the exhausted ache in his muscles.
He felt the cold, mechanical logic of the game board settling into his bones.
He stood up from the wet dirt and looked around the small camp.
Lucian sat on a fallen log near the tree line. The noble sharpened a rusted iron dagger he scavenged from the dirt outside St. Celeste.
He dragged the metal across a rough whetstone with slow, deliberate strokes.
His green eyes locked onto the dark forest and burned with raw, unfiltered hatred.
Zorya sat cross-legged near the fire. The unchained Inscriptor spread her translation parchment across the dry moss.
The thick veins of liquid silver ink flowing across her hands hummed with steady power.
Lara knelt next to the unconscious Oracle.
