To Cael Ardent, the roaring world above had already ceased to exist.
He did not hear the splintering oak of the taproom doors, nor the thunder of imperial boots pouring into the cellar bays. The frantic shouts of Tobin from the vaulted threshold and Jon Hale’s harsh, commanding voice warning him back from the sill did not reach his ears as speech; they were merely distant, muffled ripples moving through deep water, like the sounds of church bells heard by a drowning boy beneath the mill weir.
There was only the crystal.
Beneath the four-inch slab of warded quartz, the amber luminescence of the sovereign governor pulsed with a slow, magnificent rhythm that matched the failing cadence of his own heart.
RESTORE PRIMARY PATTERN.
The golden letters did not mock him now. They burned with the clean, unsparing promise of an imperial sanctuary. Within their geometric fire, Cael could see the single, translucent filament in the lower corner of the matrix—the pale, trembling thread that held all that remained of Edda’s spirit.
For twelve lives, he had carried the phantom ache of his own recurring deaths. He remembered the cold bite of the border dagger across his windpipe beneath the granary in the third cycle; he remembered the crushing impact of the imperial masonry ball that had shattered his pelvis at the orchard breastwork in the sixth; he remembered the bitter, curdled taste of monkshood wine he had swallowed in the vestry when the south line collapsed in the ninth…
