The temple had not recovered.
The candles that had gone out during the failed ritual were being lit again one by one, but the hall still felt wrong. Smoke hung low in the air. The cracked lines across the ritual circle had not closed. Priests moved around them in tight, uneasy steps, speaking in voices too low to be useful.
Elian stood where they had left him.
No one had untied him because no one had tied him at all. The circle itself had held him there. Even now, with the chanting broken and the bowl overturned, he could feel something in the floor resisting him whenever he tried to shift too far from the center.
His palm still bled in a thin line.
Not much.
Enough.
The older priest had pressed cloth over the cut once, then pulled it away when the blood stopped dripping. Since then, he had been staring at the broken markings on the floor like he could force them into sense if he looked hard enough.
