Silence settled over them. Valerian's breath emerged slow, controlled, the particular exhalation of someone who had learned to measure his responses in public. Vaelric said nothing. He had known, in the abstract way that knowledge of the future became knowledge of the past, and why this moment would frighten him.
In the history he remembered, the timeline that had shaped his understanding before he stepped from the vault and began to change everything, Lyara Nerewyn had died nine years ago and remained dead. There had been no prophecy of her awakening, no spirit summoned from silver and flame, no question of her return in any form.
