The Rusty Mug was warm, but Roran felt nothing.
He sat at a table near the window with a half-empty cup of ale in front of him, but he had not touched it in the last twenty minutes. The ale had gone warm, and the foam had settled into a flat, ugly crust.
He did not care.
His eyes were open, but he was not looking at anything in the room. He was miles away, trapped in the past.
Clara's face kept appearing in his mind.
He saw her standing in the kitchen of their old home, her hands covered in flour up to her wrists. She was laughing at something he had said, some stupid joke he could not even remember anymore.
But he remembered her laugh.
He would never forget that sound. It was bright and warm, like sunlight through a window, and it made everything else in the world feel smaller.
