Kharzun's eyes widened.
"This cannot be," he said. "There was still supposed to be half a minute left before the edict's window bled out."
For the first time since the world had been varnished gray, something in him misaligned.
Calculation.
One could hear it in the way his gaze moved like a siege-engine checking its gears.
The ten miniature Kharzuns held their cage.
Invisible planes of petrified reality still formed a polyhedral prison around Lucien's body. Blood coordinates were stitched through the air like fine red thread, and grave magic sealed the stitch-work with the finality of funerary wax.
Inside that cage, Lucien hung limp.
Unconscious.
His heart still beat but not with choice. It beat the way a candle flickered after a gust.
Kharzun lifted a claw.
One strike and the nuisance that had delayed him would become an entry in the ledger of the dead.
Across the battlefield, Vaelcar's face remained frozen.
