ALDRIC
The cell smelled even worse as the minutes trickled by.
I had been sitting on the stone bench long enough that the cold had worked its way through my trousers and into my bones. My shirt was damp at the back. My hands, when I looked at them, had a faint tremor I could not fully suppress, no matter how many times I pressed them flat against my thighs.
Something was very wrong with me.
The heat had not stopped. It had deepened. It moved through my chest in waves now, pulling at the edges of my concentration, making it harder to hold a single thought without it slipping sideways. My heartbeat was uneven in a way I could not ignore. Too fast and then too slow, like it could not decide which rhythm to settle into.
I kept my face still.
