The vellum didn't lie, but it could be made to sing a siren’s song.
Selene sat beneath the high, slit-arched windows of the secondary tower, the pale morning light catching the microscopic particles of charcoal dust that danced above her workspace.
A clean, heavy tunic of charcoal wool enveloped her small frame, a garment stripped of the lace and pearls that had once defined her southern cage, yet bearing an undeniable weight of authority. Her wrists, bound in fresh, dry linen, no longer throbbed with the heat of the iron cuffs; instead, they moved with a precise, rhythmic fluidity across the expansive leather-backed drafting table.
Before her lay the blueprint of an empire's demise.
With a fine-tipped quill of crow-feather, she was currently drawing the topography of the *Black-Tooth
