The real hell of this, he decided, was not his painful struggle through this shadowed wasteland; nor was it the shades that drifted around him, through him, grasping with icy fingers as he struggled to hold on to the barest thread of his sense of self. It wasn’t even the gibbering screams that rang constantly in his ears, their sources obscured by darkness and distance so that he was left to imagine the horrors that had driven men beyond words.

No, the worst of it was that he’d wanted this. He’d begged with an eloquence to move the very gods—and why not? He loved her, needed her; he would do anything for one more moment together. And his prayer had been answered. He’d wanted more, wanted it all, and now it was his. But as he drew near to her at last, he felt nothing, his bones chilled by the dim, frozen orb that hung in the sky in mockery of the sun.

She stood by a pool, gazing at him with empty eyes, and he knew they were lost. One last kiss, a mere brushing of lips, and then he knelt to drink.