The fire around him stopped bursting outward for one second, but that stillness was worse somehow, because it looked exactly like the moment before something broke for good.
Isabella felt it immediately.
"He's not here," she said.
Nobody understood her except Bubu.
{His spirit is slipping! The brand is pulling him inward!}
Inside the broken, burning space of Osiris's mind, the world changed.
He stood on black stone under a red sky.
No snow.
No palace.
No village.
Only heat, smoke, and the sound of chains.
Before him was an altar.
A huge one.
Ancient.
Dark.
And around it, bound in lines of fire and blood, were figures he somehow knew even though his memory was torn and broken.
His people.
His clan.
Phoenixes.
Some were kneeling.
Some hung limply.
Some still had their heads raised, but the light in their eyes was fading.
The sight hit him so hard that his chest nearly split open from it.
He knew them.
