The split in the hearth pipe did not give warning by dripping.
It happened with the sharp, high-pitched crack of an iron hoop snapping on an over-driven cask. Two feet above the tabletop, where the four-inch lead return line entered the granite masonry of the chimney breast, the seam ruptured along a twelve-inch casting flaw. The lead peeled back like the skin of a boiled plum, and a focused, needle-thin jet of superheated steam erupted directly across the oak boards.
It did not billow; it shot with the terrifying velocity of an imperial crossbow quarrel, cutting through the red glare of the chamber like a blade of pure, invisible fire.
The jet was aimed straight at Cael’s exposed chest.
If that jet struck the raw, weeping crater over the knight’s collarbone, it would strip the remaining meat from his ribs in three heartbeats, piercing his heart and severing the unanchored bond before the words of custody could even form in the air.
Jon Hale did not calculate the trajectory. He did not consult the vellum rolls, and he did not consider the four white bands etched into his right forearm. He moved with the instinct of an innkeeper who had spent twenty years lunging across the flags to catch a falling cask before it struck an apprentice boy’s foot.
