The ancient stone hall was cool, quiet, and weighed down by centuries of slow, accumulating dust.
Shafts of pale afternoon sun fell through high-arched slits in the stone, cutting through ribbons of rising incense to illuminate a massive central dais.
Zhu Ziyan stood at the foot of that dais, staring at the statue in front of her.
The monument was carved from a colossal block of polished black basalt, its surface slick as oil despite its obvious age.
The figure possessed the lithe, dangerous grace of an apex huntress, seated upon an obsidian throne draped in stone panthers.
Her feline ears were angled slightly back, sharp and alert, and her carved stone eyes seemed to follow every subtle shift of the dust motes in the air.
Around the statue's neck hung garlands of dried desert lilies and heavy copper torcs, their metal turned green with age.
'Gods huh. Do they really exist?'
