(Apollo & Adelaide)
Adelaide’s world narrowed to the sound of his voice and the wooden X at her back. The chamber around them might as well have fallen into the void; the rest of Hell faded to a dull, distant rumble beneath the sharp, immediate reality of wood, smoke, and him.
Everything else was heat.
The cross groaned, protesting every shudder that racked her body. Her wrists burned where the smoke-bonds held them, arms stretched above her head so long she could barely feel her fingers. Her legs trembled around his hips, the ropes at her ankles biting with every involuntary squeeze. Every creak of timber sounded like a verdict, every tightening of smoke like another line of script being burned into the story of her body.
She wanted to breathe. To think. To put words to anything th
