The air-powered explosion tore the velvet portieres from the high dark wood lintels, filling the High Scroll hall with a blinding storm of scalding vapor, shredded parchment slips, and flying brass rivets.
Through the shrieking cloud of steam, Master Ren moved with the silent, hungry smooth speed of a man who had navigated burning libraries for forty unrecorded years. His ink-crusted slate-grey robes billowed behind him as his iron grip remained clamped around Ren Vale’s upper arm. He dragged him toward the narrow service door hidden behind the grand bust of the First High judge.
Ren stumbled on the polished marble. His lungs burned. Every instinct screamed at him to shout. To call out a warning as a hardwood stave cracked against the stonework three inches from his ear, to chant the binding outer edge rune he had learned by heart from the third-tier warding manuals.
He opened his mouth.
No sound emerged.
A sensation like ground foam-stone and boiling pitch surged up his throat pipe. His throat cords clamped shut with the stiffness of rusted iron hinges. When he forced air past his tongue, he didn’t produce a syllable. He convulsed, hacking wildly as a mouthful of dry, powdery grey ash spilled between his lips. It scattered across the front of his lambskin apron.
