Everything froze.
The page hung above the band. The orchards held their last apples at the same angle. A drop of light leaping from a river to a leaf stopped mid-fall and waited.
The army stood still, heads bowed, as if the theater had become a temple by mistake, and no one wanted to be rude. The mirrors dimmed. The roots hummed low and then went quiet.
Lilith's veil flattened against her shoulders, then drifted back into place, as if it, too, knew to behave. She looked up, eyes narrowed but not angry.
She knew this weight. She had carried it and been it. She let out a slow breath that turned to soft mist in the cold part of the aura and to warmth in the other.
Elowen lowered her hands, palms open, not surrendering but respectfully. The glow in her hair eased.
The band of roots softened back into rings. The life tree at her back stood very tall and very still, like a student asked to be quiet by a teacher it actually liked.
