"Mmh! Mmhh!" Vivienne's nose was running and her forehead pressed hard into his thigh, her body shaking with the kind of crying that only happens when a terror carried for months is lifted in three words.
The armor flared.
Every crimson thread along the dark plate lit at once in a pulse of red that filled the chamber, and both women flinched away from his legs as if the metal had gone white-hot. Their eyes blew wide, their hands snapped to their sides, and the message landed in their spines before it reached their brains: you're too close to my master! Get away!
"Yes!" the twins shouted, Vivienne even saluting the armor, knowing her place in the hierarchy.
Then, they threw themselves into each other's arms on the floor, hugging so hard their bodies shook, bloodied nightgowns tangling on cold stone.
"We did a good job!" Vivienne sobbed into her sister's neck.
"We did! We did a good job!" Amara wailed back, fingers clawing into Vivienne's shoulders. "He said we did!"
