The dungeon was cold, but it was a different kind of cold than the ice in Antarctica. This was the cold of old stone, of centuries of forgotten men who had screamed at these same walls until their voices gave out.
I sat on the edge of the rusted surgical table, my fingers hovering just inches away from the smooth, raw expanse where Silas’s face used to be. My heart was thumping so hard against my ribs it felt like it was trying to break out and run away.
“Silas,” I whispered.
The man on the table didn’t move. He lay there, his chest rising and falling in a shallow, jagged rhythm. There were no eyes to look back at me. There was no mouth to tell me he was okay. There was just… nothing. A blank, pinkish void that used to be the only thing in this world I truly knew.
I closed my eyes, let
