Far away, in the dungeons beneath Bastion, Effie had torn apart her cage and walked out of it with unsteady steps.
One of her hands was missing, replaced by a bloody stump. She had wrapped it in a piece of cloth, and the bleeding was already stopping — Saints healed fast, after all, and her vitality was especially boundless.
Well, at least it had been. Starvation had exhausted most of what Effie was known for.
Now that she was out of the enchanted cell, her essence was slowly returning — the more of it poured into her desolate soul, the more it felt like her body was coming back to life.
And as it did, the hunger returned with a vengeance, driving Effie to madness.
At that moment, she was glad that hers had been a solitary cell. Otherwise, she might have done something terrible in the throes of frenzied hunger.
'Surely, not...'
Effie wanted to believe in herself, but hunger... hunger made beasts out of people. Especially an unnatural hunger like hers.
