The rain had not stopped by morning. It came down in steady sheets, washing the ashes from the streets and carrying them into the gutters like gray blood. The Hollow looked almost clean again, as if pretending that the fires, the screams, and the divine s*******r by the river had never happened.
But Kael knew better. Cleansing was what the gods called it too.
He stood in the throne room—a hall stripped of gold, cracked stone pillars holding up a ceiling that sagged under its own weight. The great banners of the old kings still hung limp and blackened along the walls. The place smelled of wet stone and burned silk.
At the center of the hall knelt a man in chains. His robes had once been white and shining, stitched with threads of gold. Now they were little more than tatters, the divine i
