Not in a place like this.

He got his answer a few hours later when the door burst inwards on its hinges, admitting a trio of guards who would have looked just as at home extorting protection money from farmers as they did beating him senseless.

Despite appearances they were experts in their craft, the truncheons never doing permanent damage, never breaking bones, but instead pounding at him long after he'd gone limp, before grabbing him up under the arms and dragging him into the corridor. They didn't speak. What would have been savage cruelty elsewhere, here was a weekday.

Roblin had been convinced he'd escape once, taking these occasions to memorize the layouts of the corridors, each cut from the stone of the craggy mountain and the patterns of the guards, each a man condemned themselves. That seemed like it had been an eternity ago, however. An eternity of foul food, damp, cold and sickness, all set to the inevitable, soul-crushing drum of watching his comrades die, one by one.

The guards dragged him down the stone steps, descending the cliff that Veznihc prison had been set in, with the great sea-fort of Frest-Ozrik capping it like a jaunty, turreted hat. Lower and lower, down flight after flight of stairs, first narrow ones barely wide enough for them to drag him through abreast, then broader, cleaner ones. The prisoners and guards changed too, fresher-faced, more attentive and less ragged.

And then he was thrown into a chair, making it creak dangerously with his bulk. The trio of guards paused, looking to the other figure in the room, as if questioning.

Rob's right eye was already swelling shut, his left having taken its hits the evening before, but he knew she was there before she spoke, the lingering hints of her sweat hanging in the air. It would have been perfume to him if he hadn't known her. Then her voice hit. It wasn't even directed at him, yet he felt it batter him like a fist.

"You will leave us." Few, even among the nobles of Vanheim would dare to give orders to the guards of Veznihc. The guards quickly began backpedaling, pulling the door shut behind them. Roblin thought he heard the thump of one of the trio tripping over himself in the corridor.

Searing pain hit him, as if his face was being dragged along a brick wall, and despite the beating he'd received, he bucked wildly, unable to stop himself as the chair groaned under him. Falling out of it, he writhed on the floor until the agony gradually abated, gasping hard.

He opened his eyes wide, and slowly uncoiled himself, the lack of pain and ache strange to him after so long. At her gesture, he moved to the chair, sitting more daintily in it, and trying to ignore the protests of the wood. Before him a feast was spread across the table, roasted fowl, battered and fried fish, sausages and eggs, with a generous loaf of bread set across the center. He found his saliva flowing involuntarily as he stared at it all, bewildered despite himself.

"Please, eat. You must be hungry." She'd dropped whatever witchcraft she'd been using from her voice, the invitation delivered in an inviting lilt as she settled opposite him, serving herself a plate. There was almost a smile on her lips, and he felt his stomach turn, or perhaps that was hunger.

He risked a glance at the woman, and shuddered. She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, flawless skin the color of wet sand, warm brown eyes flecked with emeralds that danced in humor or anger and a mane of impossibly pale blonde hair, undercut and shorn boyishly short.