Ronan sat hunched on a low bench, knees jammed against his chest, eyes watery and pupils blown wide. His hands trembled, sweat slicking his palms. He'd eaten the soup. That cursed soup. If the Knight's spiritual circuitry—forged by a six-star beast tamer's power—could be shredded by that colorless liquid, what did it mean for his own brittle, failing body? His heart thumped like a trapped animal, each beat screaming you're next. The sterile lab around him, with its humming machines and acrid, burnt-metal smell, felt like a tomb closing in.
Kain approached, steps deliberate, his face still a maddening blur, like a half-remembered dream. Ronan braced, expecting agony like the Knight's convulsions. When Kain's hands touched his head—palms warm, one at his temple, another at his sternum, a third at the base of his skull—Ronan let out a bloodcurdling scream, half-sure he was about to dissolve into a writhing heap.
But no pain came.
