Location: Dark Forest / Temple of Radiance (Flashback)
Date/Time: 25 Voidmarch, 9938 AZI (Present) / 7 Voidmarch, 9938 AZI (Flashback)
Realm: Lower Realm / Radiant Realm
And then—
The memory seized him like a fist closing around his heart.
***
Eighteen days earlier.Temple of Radiance, Lower Sanctum.
The children had stopped crying hours ago.
Vaerun stood at the edge of the processing chamber, watching priests in white-gold robes move between the cages with practiced efficiency. Counting. Cataloging. Marking the ones whose essence burned brightest, whose souls would yield the most when drained.
Forty-three in this collection. A good haul.
The youngest couldn't have been more than six—a girl with dark hair and hollow eyes who'd screamed herself hoarse on the first day and now simply stared at nothing, her small hands wrapped around the bars of her cage. The oldest was perhaps twelve, a boy who still had enough fire in him to glare at anyone who came close.
