Chapter 38 The Final War

• The sanctum hummed — not with the timid glow it had once known, but with a living, humming vigilance. Golden motes drifted through the vaulted hall like captive stars. Ancient runes along the walls throbbed with recognition when Tatianna pressed her palm to the stone; the ancestral power thrummed back, eager, expectant. She had waited here, heart a drum, for the inevitable.
• He arrived like winter.
• The Shadow King did not step through a door; he fell through the air itself, shadow folding and unmaking the very light. The temperature dropped so fast the candles shrank away into their holders. For a moment the dark wore the sound of iron on the wind — a sound that meant the world tilted.