"I know that his first duty is to Aetheri, but it would not hurt to liven up his quarters just a bit," Milou mused, and reached above their head to open the shuttered window. The sunlight came streaming in brightly, and Liya shut one eye against it. "They were so dark."

It was dark where Hawk was, a livid greenish black darkness. He shuffled a little, some kind of brightish bluish smoke curling in and out of his mouth and around the shapes hanging around him. Vivid patches of bright red blood were collecting at the bottom of the things and dripping off, the sound relentlessly loud. His hands were bound together and then to a ring on the floor, his ankles shackled, his neck encircled by a dully glowing collar, his wings strapped to his back. His own wounds seared underneath the bindings.

He stirred. There were voices coming from the hanging shapes, but he couldn't distinguish what they were saying. He crouched down and clutched his head, but the voices didn't stop, and neither did the smoke.

A glimmer of hot light caught the corner of his eye. He looked, and the next second a wall of flame roared up into his face.