Tharionson's mind raced even though his body would not move. He lay on the cold archive floor with his cheek turned partly against the stone, his limbs useless beneath him, his breathing slow and shallow in a way that did not belong to him. The needle had not killed him. That, somehow, made the terror worse.
Death would have been clean compared to this paralysis, compared to being trapped inside his own body while the figure standing above him wore the face of the one man he had still trusted.
Zion's face looked down at him with an expression so calm it felt almost obscene, not the calm of discipline or military restraint, but the calm of something standing outside ordinary fear, something that had no need to hurry because the outcome had already been decided before Tharionson understood there was even a game being played.
'Who are you?' Tharionson thought, the words tearing through his mind with a force his mouth could no longer give shape to. 'What are you?'
