Chapter 38 · The Severed Edge

I was on twenty-six when the floor went.

The east landing cracked under my boots like pond ice. I threw both arms around the iron stair rail and hung there, dagger scraping stone, my legs kicking over nothing.

Below me, the whole center ring of the Hall of Claws dropped away with a roar.

Dust punched up. Then silver, a fine gray cloud of it, rolling over the ancestral bones on the walls. It hit the back of my throat like swallowed needles.

"Vane!"

Nothing. Just coughing, and the sound of old stone still falling.

I hauled myself up onto the stairs and ran the last steps on my hands and knees. My palm was slick. I'd torn it open on the rail and hadn't felt it.

The pit was twice a man's height. Silver chains hung from the ceiling over it, swinging, and four of them had already caught. One around Vane's chest. One at his left arm. Two around his legs.

He was kneeling on the broken slab with his head down.

Steam came off his bare shoulders. Not breath. Steam.