The flame of the single candle sitting on the damp stone floor was the only thing Elric had left to tether him to his humanity.
Is she asleep? he wondered.
Of course she is, he answered himself. She is probably tucked beneath those heavy quilts, her hair fanned out across the pillow like spilled ink.
He wondered what she was dreaming of. Was she dreaming of him?
"Are you seriously going to stay in this hole, my Lord?"
Rion's voice grated against Elric's heightened ears like a serrated blade dragged across a whetstone. Elric didn't move his head, but his eyes shifted toward the iron-grated door. Rion was standing there, his silhouette framed by the torchlight of the outer corridor. The knight looked around the damp, salt-stained walls of the manor's deepest cellar, his nose wrinkling at the smell of mildew and stagnant air.
