Then the memory slowed, and Dexmon's stomach dropped.
A temple. Ancient stone. Columns cracked and groaning under the weight of a ceiling that was losing its argument with gravity. Dust fell in curtains. The floor shook.
Dexmon watched himself kneel.
Ronan was on the ground.
His body was convulsing, spine arching off the stone, his limbs jerking in patterns that were too rhythmic to be random and too violent to be survivable. His eyes were open, and something was happening to them. The whites were darkening, black spreading inward from the edges like ink dropped in water, consuming color in slow, deliberate increments.
"Why did you do that?" Asher's voice was raw, broken, the voice of a man watching his brother die and unable to understand the arithmetic that had led them here. "Why the fuck did you do that, Ronan?"
