The smoke in the Great Archive hovered, trapped by the oppressive weight of the Northern atmosphere. Kassian stood in the center of the devastation, his hands still glowing with a dying orange ember, his boots standing on the shattered remains of a thousand-year-old obsidian floor. In his fist, the charred fragment of the truth was crushed so tightly that the edges bit into his palm.
Extraction is execution.
The doors at the far end of the library dissolved into a mist of sapphire frost. Arkon von Hiver stepped through the vapor, flanked by a phalanx of bone-armored mages. He looked like a grieving father entering a funeral pyre.
Arkon stopped ten paces away, his eyes reflecting the smoldering ruins of his own history. He didn't look at the dead guards. He looked only at the scrap of parchment in Kassian's hand.
