ARIA POINT OF VIEW.

Morning arrived slowly in the dungeon, creeping in with reluctant patience, as though even the sun hesitated to touch a place built for suffering.

It never came with warmth or birdsong the way mornings once had in Shadowfang. There were no distant howls greeting dawn, no rustle of leaves stirred by gentle wind, no comforting sounds of life awakening beyond castle walls. Here, dawn felt foreign, thin gray light slipping cautiously through the narrow window carved high into ...