The knight's grip was a firm band of iron and leather, the only anchor in a world that had dissolved into sensory chaos. The fading adrenaline of the shadow fight, the deep, hollow ache of my drained vitality, and the cold radiating from the man who had just shattered darkness with ice—it all coalesced into a dizzying roar in my ears. I focused on the rough texture of the knight's gauntlet, on the solid stone of the ledge beneath my stumbling feet, and on the mundane necessity of putting one foot in front of the other as he guided me away from the bridge.
I could not look at him. The Duke. Kaelen. To look was to invite the ghost of a future that had not yet happened, to confront the living man whose death had been the catalyst for my entire second life. I maintained my focus on the ground, observing the footsteps of the rescue party moving forward.
However, the world unfolded differently.
