The soft, ascending hum of the elevator was a countdown to the end. Every fiber of my being screamed to run, to hide, but my feet were rooted to the cold marble floor. Riven's grip on my arm tightened, his own panic a mirror of my own. We were rabbits caught in the blinding headlights of an oncoming train.
The hum stopped. A soft ding.
The sound of the elevator doors sliding open was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
We stood frozen in the hallway, exposed. There was no time to run, no place to hide. The footsteps that followed were not hurried. They were the measured, confident strides of a man entering his kingdom, completely unaware that treason was waiting for him in the shadows.
