Vane opened his eyes to a world painted in bruised purple and deep shadows.
The pain in his chest was no longer a jagged spike of shattered bone. It was a cold and rigid ache. Isole had not simply healed him with a gentle prayer. She had used her heavy dark mana to forge a lattice of necrotic iron inside his chest cavity. It forced his ribs together and sealed his lung with brutal efficiency. He tasted copper and old dust on his tongue. He reached blindly into the shallow water. His fingers closed around the star-steel shaft of the Silver Fang.
He used the weapon as a crutch and hauled himself to his feet. His left leg trembled, but the necrotic patch held firm.
He looked at the shattered doorway.
