Chapter 9

I felt the pull before I understood it. One moment I was floating near the ceiling of the crypt, weightless and free. The next, the golden thread yanked me downward with the force of a crashing star. It hurt. Not the dull, familiar ache of needles and extraction. This was fire — solar fire — ripping through the space between death and life. I slammed back into my body. The first sensation was cold. Bone-deep, marrow-freezing cold. My body had been dead for over two hours. The blood in...