Aragon raised his hand.
It was a small movement—barely a lift of the wrist from the armrest. But something happened when he did it.
The red came first — not fire, not flame, but something older and thinner and more terrible, a single arc of deep crimson light that seemed to tear itself out of the air just above his palm, soundless, moving faster than the eye could properly track. It crossed the table in less than a breath.
The granite split.
It didn't shatter or break, but it cut a clean line, two inches deep and the length of a man's forearm, running straight down the center of the pale stone table like something had decided the table had been whole for long enough and corrected the oversight. Dust rose from it, fine and immediate. One of the torches guttered in the displacement of air.
The room went completely silent.
Aragon set his knife down. Flat on the table, beside the split.
He looked up for the first time and looked directly at Petrovil.
