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She saw other motionless forms floating amid the flotsam: dark, furred, twisted. Gorleths. And there were men scattered throughout the wreckage as well, Tarrasian soldiers. They drifted on their backs, eyes shut, as if asleep on the sea. Inexorably, they spiraled with the other objects toward the center of the Etherion.

At last, with dull horror, Grace understood. With each orbit the floating objects drew closer to the shadow in the center. And when they reached it, they were …

… consumed.

“The demon,” she breathed.

“Grace, dear,” Melia said, amber eyes serious, “how is it that you are here?”

“We were—”

“Travis,” Beltan said, his voice hoarse. “Is he all right? And the others?”

Grace struggled to speak over the wind. “They’re all right. At least I think so. I came through …”

A new fear flooded her. In the chaos of her arrival she had forgotten. Xemeth had to be here somewhere. She craned her neck, searching.

The sorcerer clinging to the bench screamed. With a groan, the bench lurched from its moorings. The sorcerer screamed again. His gold mask flew spinning through the air—then its trajectory abruptly slowed as it became part of the procession to the center and oblivion.

With another groan the bench pulled free. The sorcerer’s arms flailed—then his hands wrapped around Aryn’s ankle.

The young baroness cried out; her grip on the bench was broken.

“No!” Grace shouted.

Falken was faster. He snaked out his black-gloved hand and caught Aryn’s left wrist. The young woman jerked to a halt, as did the sorcerer still holding her ankle. The sorcerer clutched Aryn, scrabbling at her leg, while Falken held on to her with one hand, the elbow of his other arm hooked around the bench, his face lined with effort.

“I can’t hold them!” the bard shouted.

Beltan and Vani both started to reach toward the next column in an effort to reach Aryn and Falken, but Grace knew they would never make it in time. There was only one chance.

Grace pressed her eyes shut. Aryn.

A pause, then a wavering voice sounded in her mind. Grace?

Aryn, listen to me. It was hard to use the Touch; the force of the demon pulled at the threads of the Weirding.

Grace, I don’t want to fall!

You’re not going to fall. Weave a spell around him. Weave it now—a spell of pain.

I can’t … I can’t hold the threads.…

I’ll help you.

But—

Do it, Aryn.

In her mind, Grace reached out invisible hands, clutched the undulating threads, held them in place for the young woman.

Now!

Grace sensed hesitation—then a hardness of will so strong and deep it shocked her. The threads came together in a shining cloth.

“My eyes!” the sorcerer shrieked. “Deh’ru, my eyes!”

He let go of Aryn’s leg and clutched his face, blood gushing through his fingers. He tumbled through the air, then reached the edge of the spiral. At once he began to drift along with the other matter, body motionless, staring upward with crimson sockets.

Falken reeled Aryn in. Grace felt the shadow—her shadow—pulsing on the edge of her vision. It had loomed when she helped Aryn with the spell, and it had not retreated. She felt the past weigh dark and heavy upon her.

She gazed into the shadow at the center of the Etherion, and in that instant came understanding. She thought of the pictographs on the altar, of the dot surrounded by circles of power. Yes, it all fit. It was a thing with endless gravity contained in a stone no larger than her hand—a thing that bent and twisted both time and perception, that drew matter into it with insatiable voracity.

It’s like a black hole, Grace. The demon. Everything is spiraling toward it, falling into its gravity well, with no way to escape. Even time itself. That’s why past and present have been getting so muddled here in Tarras.

She opened her mouth to explain to the others what she now knew, but she had no idea how to explain theoretical physics to a group of medieval people; she wasn’t sure she really understood herself. Nor, she supposed, did it matter. The shadow of her past bubbled