The words smote him like a giant’s fist crashing down around him. But instead of crushing him, he felt his dead heart stir once more, pounding for at least one moment again within its dark and thorny cage—life in him pulsing against the death garrisoned in his body. It was truth, smashing him as painfully as a man pounds a drowned swimmer’s chest, breaking ribs to save his life, making him gasp in pain in order to help him breathe at all.
