Rumors like tattered flags wind-snapped and echoing in the streets below told the tale of the days upon us . . . ’Twas said an eel had slipped ashore or not one but a thousand under a jagged moon that might be dead, ’twas whispered that a claw scraped slow on the city’s cobbles, even as a dragon was seen sailing high silver and black in the night sky. ’Twas heard, they say, a demon’s death cry on the rooftops on a night of blood, even as the master’s hundred hands lost a hundred daggers to the dark, and ’twas rumored then, a lady masked highborn had offered to unbidden guests a fête to
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