The Grand Hall of the Blood Moon fortress did not celebrate; it devoured.
The air inside the vast, cavernous space was thick enough to coat the throat, heavy with the choking grease of three roasting wild boars, the sour reek of spilled mead, and the volatile, competitive pheromones of two hundred unranked vanguard fighters. High above, the soot-blackened rafters groaned under the weight of the winter wind howling against the peak, while below, tallow torches spit and hissed in their iron rings, casting long, erratic shadows that danced across the walls like wolves closing in for a kill.
At the far end of the hall, rising from a dais of jagged basalt like a frozen wave of volcanic glass, sat the obsidian throne.
Selene walked toward it. Her boots made no sound against the flagstones, wh
