Aldric froze. The other monks froze. The candles guttered.
He believed. He truly did. The world, he’d been taught, was a fractious beast held together by the thinnest of leashes: ritual. One forgotten genuflection, one poorly timed nod, and the whole tapestry of reality might unravel into chaos. The old god, Unwitnessed and Exact, demanded precision the way a starving man demanded bread. Aldric froze
The beast did not wake.
Matthias shrugged. “Then we go to bed. And in the morning, we decide which rules still matter.” he’d been taught
Matthias wiped his nose on his sleeve—the wrong sleeve, Aldric noted with a spike of panic—and looked around. “Sorry,” he whispered. one poorly timed nod