Kane hit stone floor hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
He rolled onto his back, gasping, and the ceiling above him swam into focus, wrong, too high, carved with symbols that seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them.
"Where," he managed, forcing himself upright despite his body screaming in protest.
The room was empty except for him, cold stone walls curving into a chamber that felt older than anything he'd stood inside before, older even than the Ashbourne council halls. No windows. No doors visible. Just walls and the strange, shifting symbols carved into the ceiling above.
He tried to stand, and his legs gave out immediately, weakness flooding through him unlike anything he'd felt since the earliest days after his exile.
"My bond," he said aloud, reaching i
