The beads were still scattered across the floor when the High Priestess turned to me.
The hall had not recovered. I could feel it, that specific stunned quality of a room full of people who had just watched something they could not explain and had not yet decided how to arrange their faces around it. Aurora was still standing on the platform. She had not moved. Her hands were empty at her sides and her expression was doing something I had never seen it do before, something cracked and unguarded that she was working very hard to pull back into composure and had not quite managed yet.
Nobody was looking at her though.
They were looking at me.
The High Priestess looked at me with those calm unhurried eyes and she said simply, "Come forward."
My legs moved.
