The crimson droplet hung three inches from Sir Cael’s severed jugular, suspended in the empty air like a bead of red glass strung upon an invisible thread.
It did not fall toward the stone flags. It did not distort under surface tension. Beside it, forty other droplets formed a delicate, stationary fan across the cellar gloom, caught in the exact trajectory of their arterial flight. The fine spray that had hit Jon’s cheek felt cold, hard as chips of garnet glued to his skin.
The universe had snapped shut.
It was not the slow creeping freeze of river ice creeping across a winter millpond. It was an absolute, instantaneous arrest of physical motion. One heartbeat, the air had been thick with the roaring thunder of tumbling granite, the acrid bite of sulfur powder, and the wet, choking rattle of a dying knight’s throat; the next, every sound in the world was extinguished.
The roaring collapse in the aqueduct passage behind the iron door ceased entirely. The muffled thumping of boots on the kitchen floorboards overhead died without an echo. In their place came a flat, deadening monotone whine that filled Jon’s skull from ear to ear—a high-frequency vibration that had no pitch, no air, and no breath, vibrating only within the bones of his palate and the enamel of his teeth.
