The woman is silent beneath the cover of night, slipping from shadow to shadow like an ebony wraith. Rent open by the trials of time, weathered and worn and empty, the catacombs lie behind the mare, the dust only just settled.
In the ever twisting loop of time, Sobec seethed. Like embers burning, biding time and awaiting life-giving oxygen, she smouldered in the darkness. The names upon her lips are written in ash, in blood, in hatred that flickers in her gut. Zachariah. Arjun. But her anger was only half directed at them, at their treachery, the remaining fury churned within her own chest, fuelled by her failure, by the lie she had been told. Forever seemed like a second, a second seemed like forever, her mind in turmoil, her eyes veiled in darkness. She felt her brethren, trapped as endlessly as she, waiting in the darkness for Solis’ light. Falling, falling, falling. Until…until at last Sobec felt like she could breathe, like the air was finally clean. The ground beneath her hooves felt solid, even if her knees quivered and her legs felt ready to give way. Dust filled the air, the whisper of a quake still thrummed in the dirt but light filtered through where the woman recalled there being none. The Catacombs had collapsed.
Then she had become aware of the others, the Arete all coming to terms with their escape, and their loss. Each day had been endless, each year torturously slow as had slowly buried them and entombed their curse. What had happened now? What had changed? Sobec had backed into the shadows then, pressed into a crevice where she would not be seen, and watched.
Even with the curse broken time seems at odds with the obsidian woman, the nightfall coming too early, the darkness too dark. Soltera had barely changed and yet at the same time the buildings seem unfamiliar, the streets unwelcoming. Who sat upon throne now, what had the past ten years wrought upon the realm? Was there anything left of the Soltera she had known? For a moment Sobec felt scared- where would she go? But with the grim press of her lips she steeled herself- she was a survivor.
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