Ciprian's awareness returned to him in pieces, floating up like wreckage through the sea of his grief. The debris-littered floor under his feet, the cracked and dirty walls. The toppled table and broken plates and single, pathetic drinking glass on the counter.
The underwater sound of his pulse drained from his ears, and the silence of his surroundings poured in. Beneath it all, the Disorder that filled the hovel where he kept his secrets crashed against the inside of his skull.
The last thing that surfaced as he drifted back to reality was the sight of the ashes covering his hands and staining the perfect white of his robes. As he stared at his fingers, guilt bubbled up like bile on his tongue, threatening to drown him again.
How long had he been here, hiding from himself?
