Yelena couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had braced herself for some daunting request, maybe a trial of strength or wit, even something dangerous she'd have to steel herself for.
But this?...This was nothing like what she had imagined.
It wasn't noble, it wasn't even reasonable—it was perverse, so brazenly shameless that her face burned. Her teeth clenched as the words echoed in her head, each one more off-putting than the last, leaving her flustered and unsettled in a way no battlefield ever had
Her gaze then snapped to Mika, wide with disbelief.
"You...You've got to be joking, Mika." She whispered, her voice brittle, almost breaking. "That...that can't be real. There's no way an artifact would demand something like that."
She shook her head violently, as though trying to throw off the words that still echoed inside her mind.
"No...no, this has to be some kind of mistake."
