Jake froze at the offer. He'd expected something along those lines, at least in theory… but not for the proposal to come willingly from the Celestial himself.
Just minutes ago they had been nothing more than strangers standing on opposite ends of a battlefield. Worse than strangers—open enemies.
Faced with the young man's glacial reserve and that unsettling, almost inexplicable charisma that seemed to bend the air around him, the old warrior's thick brown brows drew together. The wrinkles carved by decades of command deepened, and something heavy—something almost mournful—flickered through his steel-gray eyes before he spoke again, his voice weighed down by more than just age.
"What do you truly know about what became of the fragments of the Chalice of Lumyst after it was destroyed? The version the Soulmancer King told you? A Spirit Artefact that slept for entire eras, only awakening out of pure survival instinct on the brink of extinction? Come on…"
