He reclined in her arms not with relaxation or ease, but with the stone-hard tension present in the bodies of terrified children: muscles so tight they carved new pathways in the underside of his skin, teeth clenched so violently they might as well have been carved from iron. That word was the only one he gave her, the name of that place. And while his eyes still remained in his skull, they certainly no longer remained in this world. Toward the sky they stared with aimless intent, as if the Black Oil had stolen every morsel of sense from them, torn out the presence of man and human and left him a husk as empty as a drained wineksin.
But his teeth, the three in the front, were no longer silver.
Just teeth.
That invader had fled him, leaving barely a heartbeat, barely a mind to speak of.
She cried out, and he was deaf to it. The world, however, was not: the ashes seemed to swirl harder, the snow more fiercely, and the fire roared with more vigor and anger. More of the moon was visible than the sun, now, and shadows — wherever shadows still had the capacity to hide — stretched on as evening leaned inevitably over the burning landscape.