Final Arguments
Eventually, I regained consciousness, my spirit gradually returning to my broken body. I heard murmuring voices as through a fog, felt the pain of a metal knife slitting my wrist, sturdy fingers holding it still, healing the wound as abruptly as it had come. I breathed shallowly, my hands barely feeling the cloth beneath my skin. The absence of pain in my chest and limbs surprised me, for I remembered the fiery cuts of the stone knife ripping my body apart. Somehow, the sorcery of the ritual had repaired the injuries to an extent not humanly possible. A fleeting memory crossed my brain, an image of my Opa Hobart, who had quadruple bypass surgery several years before I embarked on my adventures with the Torstein. It had taken him months to recover, weeks to feel no pain. Ye
