She noticed it during Mass. The priest raised the host, and Elara felt nothing. No awe. No comfort. No familiar weight of grace pressing against her ribs. Instead, she felt space —a hollowed-out cavern where her faith had once nested. And in that cavern, something was moving.
The second contamination was her flesh.
“Why me?” she asked the darkness that night, alone in her chambers. Her voice had changed. It had harmonics now, undertones that vibrated in the bones. contamination corrupting queens body and soul
She could feel everything .
Elara dismissed him. She was wrong to do so. She noticed it during Mass