Kaelen Vance looked at the silver soul-lantern resting in the inquisitor’s trembling hands.
The morning sunlight glinted across the glass, reflecting the frantic swirling of several hundred microscopic soul-sparks.
“Burn them?” Kaelen asked, his tone level and unhurried. “Do you have any idea how much smoke burnt souls produce? It ruins the laundry on the line. It leaves black soot on the rafters.”
Thorne-Crow stared at him, his jaw slack with disbelief.
“You joke,” the inquisitor rasped, his voice raw. “My world was reduced to ash, and you talk about laundry.”
“I never joke about laundry,” Kaelen replied. “Sera makes me wash the quilts if soot touches them. I would rather fight three emperors than scrub wet wool in cold river water.”
Thorne-Crow did not smile.
A wild, desperate fire ignited in the old hunter’s hollow eyes.
