The kitchen at Silver Rest Inn smelled exactly as it always had in the fragile, gray hours before dawn: the comforting aroma of warm yeast from freshly baked bread, the sharp herbal tang of steeped tea, and that particular, comforting mustiness of ancient wooden beams that had inhaled decades of cooking smoke and hearth fire.
For a moment, Rex lingered in the doorway, the threshold separating the mundane peace of the inn from the apocalyptic storm he was orchestrating.
He let the familiarity of the space settle over his shoulders like a familiar cloak, anchoring him to the world he was about to set on fire.
Three days. That was all that remained before the offensive against the Underlayer would tear the sky asunder.
Three days that felt like an eternity of suspended animation, yet simultaneously rushed past like sand through a broken hourglass.
