Chapter 45 - The Final Ritual

I awoke even before the first gray of dawn, my heart beating like a distant drum in my chest. The air was cold with the threat of frost, and the hard stone floor under my feet was cutting through my slippers as I walked. I wrapped my cloak more closely around my shoulders (the cold did nothing to stop my hands from trembling) and ascended by the narrow stairway to the temple's lower terrace. Each step reverberated in the empty hallway, a mocking indication that by break of day, all would be different.