"Enjoy it while you can," I muttered under my breath, then let the words carry louder until they reached them. "Aren't you celebrating a little too soon?"
They turned, faces slack with disbelief. The fear that had swelled in their eyes when the forbidden elven skill had failed. Hands trembled at hilts, feet shuffled for distance, but there was nowhere to go. Speed wasn't a trick; it was the world abandoning them.
Not a scratch. Not one. They knew, in an instant more absolute than any sermon, that they were done.
They tried to bargain first — the soft, old habit of offering what they had left in the face of the inevitable. One fell to his knees and began to weep. Another dropped his weapon and pressed both hands together as if prayer could undo the calculus of a body moving faster than reaction.
