Vane expected a sudden traumatic plunge into the Hydra's corridor. He braced himself for the smell of corrupted flesh and the agonizing pressure of holding a collapsing reality.
Instead, he woke up cold.
The air was sharp and thin, smelling of frost and old stone. He was standing in a castle courtyard at dawn. The light was a pale grey spilling over high battlements. He looked down at his hands. They were small and pale and calloused. The ash wood training spear he held was unadorned and rough. It felt impossibly heavy, its weight dragging on small underdeveloped shoulders.
He wasn't Vane the Usurper. He was Senna Valerius. She was eight years old and already stubborn enough to be out here before the sun.
