Alpheo stood motionless, his hands resting on the rough wooden edge of the table, staring down at the body laid before him. The candlelight flickered, its glow casting deep shadows along the chamber walls, making the dead seem as if he might yet stir. But there was no breath left in the prince, no ember of life. Only the hollowed-out remains of a man who had once been the most dangerous threat to his princedom .
Shemleik's corpse was still fresh, his flesh yet to turn to the sickly gray of the long-dead. His features remained eerily untouched, his lips parted slightly, as if about to speak some final command that had never left his mouth.
His armor had been stripped from him, and he lay bare from the waist up, the remnants of his tunic torn away. Yet Alpheo's eyes were drawn past the face—past the illusion of something human—and onto the jagged ruin where once there had been an arm.
