The seizure didn’t strike Ren Vale’s body. It struck the stonework of his past.
It hit him the instant the tension left his muscles. Malakor fell into Vane’s custody and the bookbinders secured the ropes. Then, Ren took a single step toward his sister.
His left foot never touched the stone.
A sound like an iron bell cracking underwater echoed through his skull. Ren’s knees gave way fully. He collapsed onto the dark rock platform, his forehead slamming against the flat stone slabs with a dull, wet thud.
His vision didn’t go black. It went white—the terrifying, blinding white of an empty page where an entire chapter had been excised with a razor.
In the center of his mind, a violent time vortex opened.
He saw a house. A narrow, two-story timber house leaning against an old brewery wall. He saw a blue painted front door with an iron knocker shaped like an acorn. He saw a small, wire-haired grey terrier barking at the mail-cart, its tail wagging so hard its whole hindquarters shook. He knew that dog. He had fed it scraps of salt pork beneath the kitchen table for five years. He had carried it through the snow when its paw was cut on broken glass.
