Potatoes the household had stored for winter lay piled in a corner of the wine cellar. Some had already sprouted, their pale shoots trembling faintly in the darkness, as though mimicking human fingers.
After an unknown length of time, the shaking finally stopped.
When he climbed out of the cellar, the setting sun was sinking beyond the far end of the enormous trench Dragon had gouged out.
The trench cut through the entire street. Buildings on either side looked as though an invisible giant plow had turned them over, their exposed cross sections eerily clean.
There were no flames, no ** marks, only the pale surfaces left after sheer force had stripped matter away.
His accomplice was still standing where he had been.
His posture had not changed, and his eyes still faced the sky, but his pupils had gone slack.
The man reached out and touched him-the body toppled stiffly backward, landing with a hard, dull thud, like a sack of frozen grain.
He stepped over the ** and walked into the street.
Wind surged up from the depths of the trench, carrying the earthy tang of underground soil and a certain... lingering warmth from metal scraping against metal.
A new rumble came from the distant Royal Palace. This one was not Dragon's, but the mingled echoes of splitting rock and collapsing buildings.
Fragments of black armor were hurled high into the sky, flashing dark red as they tumbled through the sunset.
The man bent down and picked up the emerald ring.
He slipped it onto his index finger. It was tight.
He twisted it hard, leaving white marks in the skin around his knuckle.
Then he began running toward the docks, his boots trampling rubble, someone's severed finger, and a children's book blown open by the wind-a princess