The coals rose to meet me, and I took stock of exactly how poor I was.
The well behind my ribs wasn't dry anymore. That was the good news, and it was thin news. Kneeling in the green-lit dark long enough to hold a sword had let some small trickle seep back, enough to feel, nowhere near enough to spend the way I'd spent all night.
I had a cupful where I'd once had a river. And across the shelf from me was a thing the length of a street that had eaten ten thousand of its lessers without chewing.
'So no burning the surface. No throwing walls of it around and hoping. I do that twice and I'm empty and dead.'
