From the floor of the ruined vestry, Sister Oda looked up through the swirling fog of lime dust to see the light of an older, uncorrupted world ignite before her eyes.
She scrambled to her feet among the splintered pine laths, her breath tasting of bitter chalk, dry wood fiber, and dried horsehair. Her dark wool habit was torn at the left elbow, and the skin of her forearm was scraped raw where she had tumbled against the oak vestment chest during Cael’s initial assault, but her dark eyes were clear, steady, and observant.
Jon Hale stood squarely within the shattered doorway, his back to her, his broad shoulders completely filling the ragged breach in the partition wall.
The innkeeper did not raise a weapon. He had no sword, no dagger, and no shield of iron or boiled leather. He held his right hand high against the lintel, pressing the flat of his palm firmly against the splintered oak jamb of the door frame. Between his calloused fingers, the blackened, singed paper of the ancient prayer strip was pinned flat against the resinous timber.
The paper was scarcely wider than two fingers and four inches long, its margins curled and blackened by a fire that had taken place before the current loop of time began—a physical survivor of an erased peacetime morning. But as Jon’s right middle finger pressed against the wood, the white ring etched into his flesh blazed with blinding, celestial azure light that turned the swirling dust…
