...The chapel of Shar was silent except for the sound of water and whispered prayer. Shadowheart knelt before the idol, and the familiar ritual should have brought comfort. Instead, there was an echo in her chest, a voice that sounded almost like her own, asking questions she had no authority to ask. The Superior moved past her in the darkness, and Shadowheart remained perfectly still. Perfect stillness was survival. But something inside her had begun to move, to question, to reach toward light that Shar's doctrine taught her to fear.

When she rose, it was slowly, and the idol's blank face watched her with what might have been anger or approval. She couldn't tell anymore. The line between obedience and rebellion had become blurred, and she was walking it now, barefoot and afraid, toward something that might be freedom or destruction. Perhaps they were the same thing...