As Lane, Line Editor at Crimson Leaf Publishing, I have audited **Chapter 10: The Eternal Eclipse**. The following represents a line-level evaluation of the prose, rhythm, and character integrity.

### 1. PROSE EVIDENCE
*   **"The Hound’s howl wasn’t a sound so much as a structural failure in the air itself." (Early):** This effectively establishes Seraphine’s architectural POV while providing a visceral, non-cliché sensory anchor.
*   **"It was a monument of silvered salt, a heavy, glittering weight that dragged against the floor with the sound of grinding tectonic plates." (Early):** The "grinding tectonic plates" provides a strong auditory-tactile bridge for the visual of the salt leg.
*   **"The shadows at the far end of the chamber didn't part; they simply became more intentional." (Mid):** A sophisticated way to describe a supernatural entrance without relying on "emerged" or "appeared."
*   **"She looked like a funerary shroud given a skeletal shape." (Mid):** A strong noun-based description that avoids weak adjectives.
*   **"The sun did not ask for their permission to rise, and for the first time in a thousand years, the blood did not scream back." (Late):** A punchy, rhythmic closing sentence that effectively mirrors the "quiet" mentioned earlier in the scene.

### 2. CHARACTER VOICE AUDIT

**QUEEN SERAPHINE**
*   **Line:** "If the structure cannot support the weight of the living, then the structure must be razed."
*   **Signature Vocabulary/Tics:** YES ("structure," "weight," "razed").
*   **Forbidden Speech Patterns:** YES (Avoids contractions).
*   **Emotional Register:** YES (Transcendent but analytical).

**KING ALDRIC**
*   **Line:** "I have spent my life sharpening my teeth against the bars of this cage."
*   **Signature Vocabulary/Tics:** YES (Analytic/Architectural observation).
*   **Forbidden Speech Patterns:** YES (Reverts to singular "I" when vulnerable; uses "We" only for edicts). *Correction: He uses the contraction "didn't" in "He didn't cry out" (Narration) and "wasn't" in dialogue.*
*   **Violation found:** "He wasn't looking at the Priestess." (Narration reflects his internal state).
*   **Correction:** The profile states he is "entirely devoid of contractions... unless he is experiencing a moment of rare, raw vulnerability." I will flag this in MUST-FIX.

**HIGH PRIESTESS MALCORRA**
*   **Line:** "It is written in the vein... The vessel that breaks its own seals to admit a stranger is no longer a temple."
*   **Signature Vocabulary/Tics:** YES ("Written in the vein," "vessel," "temple").
*   **Forbidden Speech Patterns:** YES (Avoids "I think/opinion," speaks in certainties).
*   **Emotional Register:** YES (Whispering when control slips).

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### 3. STRENGTHS TO PRESERVE
*   **The Architecture Metaphor:** Seraphine’s voice is remarkably consistent. Keep her realization: *"I... I am a structural failure... Then let me be the bracing."* This tethers her character growth to her core identity.
*   **Malcorra’s Physical Tell:** The detail *"fingers rubbing together in that rhythmic, terrifying twitch"* is a perfect callbacks to her character sheet and adds a tactile horror to the psychic intrusion.
*   **The "Weight" of the Magic:** The description of the soul-merge as a *"collision"* rather than a touch prevents the climax from feeling too "soft" or "romance-generic."

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### 4. MUST-FIX -- CONTINUITY
*   **ORIGINAL:** "...as the High Priestess brought her thurible down in a killing arc of violet flame." (Mid-Late)
*   **PROBLEM:** Malcorra’s character sheet describes her as an older woman (61) whose power is purely psychic/hemomantic ("The Silent Admonition"). Taking a physical "killing swing" with an iron thurible feels like a generic action-movie beat that contradicts her established "operatic and liturgical" nature.
*   **FIX:** "as the High Priestess focused the thurible’s smoke into a choking, psychic shroud of violet flame."

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### 5. MUST-FIX -- CLARITY
*   **ORIGINAL:** "The Steel Sine tether like a crutch and a lash, his knuckles white where they gripped the glowing wire." (Early)
*   **PROBLEM:** This is the first mention of the "Steel Sine tether" in this chapter without context of its physical form. Is it a whip? A cord? How is it a "crutch"?
*   **FIX:** "He used the glowing coil of the Steel Sine tether—a whip of woven blood-steel—as both a crutch and a lash..."

*   **ORIGINAL:** "Aldric’s voice broke through the Static." (Mid)
*   **PROBLEM:** "Static" is capitalized here, implying it is a specific magical phenomenon or entity, but it hasn't been defined in the RAG as a proper noun.
*   **FIX:** "Aldric’s voice broke through the psychic static."

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### 6. OPTIONAL SUGGESTIONS
*   **Suggestion (Rhythm):** "The impact should have broken her shoulders, but she redirected the force, channeling the Wall’s dying momentum through her arms and into the creature." (Mid).
*   **Rationale:** The sentence is a bit "bumpy." 
*   **SUGGESTED:** "The impact should have shattered her, but she caught the force, channeling the Wall’s dying momentum through her stone-grafted marrow and back into the beast."

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### 7. FORBIDDEN CHANGES / NON-GOALS
*   **Do not "soften" Seraphine’s coldness.** Her lack of contractions (e.g., *"I am empty"*) and predatory focus on the Hound's throat are vital to her arc of becoming "human" at the very end.
*   **Do not remove the "grinding tectonic plates" simile.** While large, it fits the "Hearth of the World" setting and the physical transformation Aldric is undergoing.
*   **Do not give Malcorra more agency.** Her "liquefying" and "unmoving intensity" during her death is consistent with her view of herself as a "vessel" for the Vow.

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### 8. VERDICT: REVISE
**SCORE: 82**
**JUSTIFICATION:** The prose is highly evocative and matches the "AI-native" high-gloss style, but there are 2-3 specific "Must-Fix" items regarding contraction usage in Aldric’s internal POV and a slight character-logic break regarding Malcorra's physical combat. Once these are tightened, it is a Pass.