The iron crown is heavier than it looks. It bites into Ceridwen’s brow, the metal smelling of old rust and dried tallow. High Priest Aldous Marn steps back, his fingers stained with the sanctified oil he just used to mark her skin. Behind him, the Vault of the Sleeping God stretches into a silence so thick it tastes of dust. Forty-one days remain until the winter solstice. Forty-one days until the seventh queen must bleed to keep the city above from screaming.
Ceridwen turns from the priest toward the line of stone. Six sarcophagi wait in a perfect, geometric row. The first five are sealed, their lids heavy with the weight of centuries. The sixth remains slightly misaligned, a jagged gap at the corner catching the torchlight. Marn leads her to the end of the line, where a seventh plinth stands empty. Her own name is already carved into the granite, the letters sharp and unfinished. This is the geometry of my life.
Marn watches her with the pride of a man who has built a machine. He has called her daughter for twenty-nine years, but his eyes only see the vessel. A sudden, cold draft cuts through the freezing air of the vault. From the black mouth of the tunnel past the sixth tomb, a wet, dragging sound begins to approach.
