The glacier palace burned and froze at the same time, a paradox made manifest. Black sand had turned to glass beneath their feet; shards of it hung mid-air like suspended shrapnel, each one reflecting a different facet of the unfolding apocalypse. The Phoenix Heart was no longer heart-shaped, but a blazing, wingéd thing the size of a cathedral, hovering above the shattered throne. It beat out shockwaves that peeled centuries off the walls like layers of rotten parchment. Every pulse ...