The icy draft from the unlatched window carried the scent of autumn mud and rotting reeds, yet inside Bryce’s chest, the cold burned with far greater ferocity.
He planted his palms against the stained linen sheets, swinging his legs over the side of the mahogany bed as his bare heels struck the cold floorboards. Within his meridians, the circulation was no longer the clean, steady river of ancestral martial arts; a thick, freezing current churned through his veins, dark and heavy like river sludge beneath a winter freeze. The pain of his shattered ribs was entirely gone, replaced by an artificial numbness where fibrous black cords held the bone together beneath his pale skin.
Master Douglas stood by the corner wardrobe, wiping the rim of the empty obsidian vial with a rag before slipping
