The golden coin sat in the center of my palm, a cold, heavy weight that seemed
to drink the very heat from my skin. It was perfectly circular, its edges sharp
enough to draw blood, and the image of the clock on its face was not a static
engraving. The hands were moving—not in seconds or minutes, but in a frantic,
erratic jitter that seemed to match the uneven rhythm of my own pulse.
Aidan, still tucked into the silk sling against my chest, was watching the coin
with an intensity that made my breath catch. His gold eye was bright, reflecting
the coin's metallic sheen, while his obsidian eye was a deep, unblinking well of
shadow. He had caught a butterfly of memory and turned it into a currency of
judgment.
"It's ticking, Elara," Kaelen said.
He stood beside me in the center of the Great Hall, his hand hovering near my
wrist. He didn't touch the coin; he had learned the hard way that the artifacts
