The first torch guttered and caught again, two small flares that marked the bell as well as any drum.
Xinying stood already in the room. She hadn't bothered with a chair. The stone under her feet was damp in the mortar, the iron rings in the walls black with old weather and older breath.
The air held that cellar smell of vinegar and dust that never entirely left, even when you had it scrubbed hard enough to bruise a brush.
They brought the two that still mattered. Or to be more accurate… the two that were still breathing.
One was conscious enough to hate his luck, while the other one was drifting in and out of consciousness, his eyelids dragging like doors that hadn't been oiled in years. Ropes bit into their wrists that had been clever an hour too long.
Yaozu took the far corner without seeming to move at all.
Deming checked a lantern wick and pinched the flame lower until the room obeyed his idea of light.
