EMMALINE
The corridor feels endless.
Stone and shadow and the soft scrape of my bare feet against the floor, over and over, a rhythm that does nothing to quiet the noise inside my head. The guard behind me says nothing. Doesn’t comment when I slow. Doesn’t react when I stumble on a raised edge of stone and have to catch myself against the wall with both hands. He simply waits, and then gestures forward, and I keep walking because there is nothing else.
The smell changes the further we go. The damp rot of the cell fades and something else takes its place — smoke, and underneath it something thick and ceremonial, incense burning somewhere close, heavy enough to coat the tongue. My stomach, already unreliable, turns over once in warning.
The double doors at the end of the corridor are tal
