The spasm in Jon Hale’s right arm was not a failure of will; it was the involuntary, mechanical failure of cooked tendon and scorched nerve.
When the deep flexor muscles along his radius gave way, his blackened fingers curled inward like dried birch twigs, snapping open his grip on the lug-handle. The twenty-two-pound bronze bowl, unbalanced by the sudden loss of support on the north side, tilted violently across the charred oak planks.
It struck the table with a hollow, metallic chime that sounded like an altar bell dropped into a well, then rolled off the edge and plunged into the three inches of purple wine runoff that covered the cellar floor.
The impact threw a wall of boiling, acidic water across the flagstones.
The golden Returner Seal did not hit the floor. As the bowl overturned, Cael Ardent lunged forward across the smoking table, his bare chest dragging through the burning sap, his blistered hands diving through the scalding mist with a desperate, wild speed that defied his shattered thigh. He caught the flattened gold disc three inches above the rising sludge, his charred fingers locking around the perimeter ring with the grip of a drowning sailor seizing an anchor chain.
