Chapter 32 · Before the Last Wake-Up

The fires were close enough that Rin could smell them.

Not smoke. Not yet. Just the sharp, ozone tang of barrier techniques failing one layer at a time. The capital shield was gone. Kael had cut it himself, and now the enemy cultivators outside the walls had about three hours before they realized no one was coming to stop them.

Rin pressed her palm against the altar stone. It was cold. Colder than it should be for something that had just eaten a twenty-year-old blood pact.

"How long do we have?" she asked.

Kael didn't look up from the sigil he was tracing in ash and his own blood. His hand was steady. That was the worst part. His hand was always steady when everything was falling apart.

"Two hours," he said. "Maybe three if Varric's busy gloating."

"And if he's not?"

"Then we're already dead."

Rin watched him work. His sleeves were rolled up. There was a fresh cut along his forearm, the kind you made when you needed fast blood and didn't care about scars. The sigil was old-dynasty work, the kind that bent life-lines instead of breaking them.