The doors of the punishment cave began to open with a roar deep enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
Two mountainous slabs of black stone dragged themselves apart, their hidden mechanisms grinding through the walls with the tortured complaint of something being forced open; the sound rolled through the cave and returned in heavier echoes until the entire hollow seemed to tremble beneath the Heavenchild estate.
Light spilled from the colossal underground hall beyond the doors, broad and golden, flooding across the cave floor in a widening path before the darkness that had ruled the chamber retreated back over the walls and gathering inside cracks too narrow for the brilliance to reach.
At the rear of the cave, where the shadows remained thickest, a figure slowly emerged.
Anahita raised one pale hand over her eyes.
For several breaths, she seemed less like a prisoner being revealed and more like something the darkness had reluctantly surrendered.
