The air only got more acrid and stale the longer they lingered in the palace. The hall seemed to stretch forever to Eris. He kept frightfully glancing back to Marion, though every so often, he swore he caught the gleam of eyes peeking from the shadows. He only grew more and more sure that the palace, the place he had spent most of his adult life until seven months prior, was no longer his home. He only grew more aware of how unnatural everything had come to feel the longer they spent ...