CHAPTER 18: THE SCARS OF DESTINY
PART I: THE QUARTZ SENTINELS
The silence reigning in the infirmary of the Quartz Palace was an almost palpable entity, a leaden shroud stifling the echoes of the crystals that formed the walls. The air, saturated with heavy humidity, carried the acrid scent of macerated mandrake roots, the earthy freshness of rock moss, and, above all, that persistent metallic tang: the blood of the brave. For Sacha, the night had not been a simple succession of hours, but a wartime trench dug against the Reaper who prowled, invisible, between the quartz columns.
Her hands, usually of surgical precision, were beginning to betray an abyssal fatigue. A slight tremor shook her fingers as she adjusted a silk bandage saturated with elixir onto the shredded thigh of her husban
