Part 7 · Chapter 7

Arlinstead

48 min read

Cover for Arlinstead

Arlinstead welcomes them with warmth too perfect, smiles too synchronized, and streets scrubbed too clean. But beneath the firelight and ritual chants, something older stirs, something dressed in reverence, but hollow at the core.

For readers who love

  • Towns that smile too perfectly
  • Religion dressed as warmth, hollow at the core
  • Slow-creeping wrongness beneath ritual and firelight

He did not touch it. Malak stood at his shuttered window. The chapel glowed again. Not the glow of hearthlight. Something too clean.

Featured in this chapter

The Journey

  1. Part 1: Seeds of Discontent
  2. Part 2: The First Fracture
  3. Part 3: Mending the Cracks
  4. Part 4: The Weight of Chains
  5. Part 5: Blood on the Roots
  6. Part 6: The Covenant
  7. Part 7: Arlinstead
  8. Part 8: The Flight
  9. Part 9: Emma
  10. Part 10: The Road to Lorn
  11. Part 11: The Dividing Road
  12. Part 12: Josephine
  13. Part 13: The Hearing