Inside the eye of the temporal storm, all physical sound was crushed into a single, terrifying vibration that resonated directly within the marrow of Jon Hale’s skull.
The circular granite chamber had unraveled into a roaring expanse of pure azure luminescence, spinning in violent, counter-clockwise sheets that sheared away the boundary between stone, air, and memory. The basalt plinth was gone. The warded quartz viewing plate had dissolved into a web of blinding white threads that whipped through the void like severed cords. Cael’s floating body was a dark, distant silhouette drifting into the eye of the whirlpool, the Solen steel in his chest trailing a wake of cold silver sparks.
Jon remained suspended in the vortex, his knees locked around the thirty-pound bulk of the Bound Town Ledger.
The pressure of displaced time was crushing him. It bore down upon his skull, his shoulders, and his spine with the colossal force of deep ocean water, trying to force his ribs flat and expel the breath from his lungs. The air in his throat was freezing, so cold it crystallized into tiny needles of frost against his teeth, tasting of pure copper, burnt hair, and ancient unmade snow.
Through the shrieking azure mist, the ghosts of the twelve lives rushed past him in reverse order.
