[ALARIC]

The dust from the shattered foyer settled on the gravel like grey snow. I stood between the wreckage of my home and the two women who defined the two halves of my life.

My heart was thudding an erratic rhythm—not from fear, but from the sheer, impossible weight of the atmosphere. I looked down at Lana. She was vibrating with a primal, maternal terror, her hands hovering over Lyra’s battered shoulder. Seeing them like this—my wife and my daughter broken on the ground—sent a ...