The room—if it could even be called that—was not made of stone or wood or any earthly material Harith could name. The ground beneath him shimmered like obsidian glass, reflecting his pale face back at him in distorted, broken fragments. The sky above wasn't sky at all, but a twisting maelstrom of colorless storm clouds, pulsing with veins of lightless lightning. And at the center, Paige stood. Still. Waiting. Watching.
He stepped forward, and the glass rippled beneath his feet like water.
Then, the memories came—not as visions this time, but as sensations. Raw. Unfiltered. The taste of iron on his tongue. The warmth of a fire that didn't burn. The sound of six voices chanting in a language none of them had ever learned, but somehow all understood.
The ritual had been their idea.
No. Not theirs.
Zixuan's idea.
