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Raettonus continued on, paying them little mind.
    It was a long time before he realized that he was lost. He had ended up in a stark, cold hall he was certain he had not passed through on his way to his own room or to the citadel’s shrine. With a frustrated grunt, he turned and backtracked toward the hallway where he was certain he’d seen the centaurian lovers before, but he found no trace of them. He called out, but his own voice echoed back, sounding bitter and alone. Somewhere a clock was ticking very faintly.
    He started down the hallway, hoping he’d chance upon the pair of centaurs again, though he was certain they had already left to take their turn at the watch or maybe to train in the courtyard. The ticking of the clock grew fainter and fainter as he traversed the shady hall. He came to a staircase and descended it, wondering which floor of the complex he was on. He passed by some hangings of the Royal Zylekkhan coat of arms—a hoof with a sword behind it on a checkered field of red and purple—before he reached the next floor down. No torches burned at all on this floor, but Raettonus’ flesh began to take on a faint orange glow, providing him enough light to navigate the hall by. The floor was grimy and it smelt of disuse. With a sigh, Raettonus ran a hand over his head.
    “Great,” he muttered to the darkness. “I’m never going to find my way out of here. I should’ve been given a map. That should’ve been part of the agreement…”
    He squinted into the blackness, which his own illumination did not dispel. Certainly this floor—or at least this wing of the floor—was abandoned, and he had not passed there. However, instead of going back, he pressed on in hopes of finding another stair to take him back up, hopefully to a place he recognized. He heard a scratching from far off in the shadows and put his hand on his rapier, hoping to God there weren’t rats hiding in the darkness.
    Just thinking about rats made it hard for him to breathe. In the complete darkness around him, there could’ve been thousands of rats, crawling all around each other with their beady eyes and their disgusting, bald tails. Raettonus’ chest tightened as he thought about those horrible, filthy animals watching him from the shadows, full of disease, death clinging to their fur. He shivered and reached out with his left hand, a fireball appearing in his palm. Warm, orange light filled the area, and Raettonus could see that it was free of rats—though it was full of cobwebs. Whatever the reason for the room’s abandoned state, it had obviously been that way for quite a while. Raettonus’ pulse began to slow, and he could breathe again.
    By the light of his fire, Raettonus could see he was in some sort of large chamber instead of a proper hallway. He guessed it might’ve been a dining hall at one time by the high ceiling, though the tables seemed to have been long since removed. At each end of the room there were banners hung in red and purple, and large, dusty paintings hung on the walls. Raettonus moved toward one of these curiously; centaurian art was always so delightfully brutal. They were a race awash in violence, which was as interesting to study as it was grating to be close to.
    Dirt dulled the colors of the painting, but he could still make everything out without too much difficulty. It showed a bunch of centaurs burning down one of the elven cities that used to border Ti Tunfa, long, long before Raettonus had ever come to Zylx. He walked along the painting, examining the carnage so carefully detailed upon it. At the center of the painting stood the proud King Daebrish, a crown of bones upon his brow. Raettonus made his way slowly past the painting to the next one, which depicted an eyeless Kurok in a forest with blood dripping from his abdomen as a black unicorn stood over him, protecting him from wolves creeping in from the edges of the painting. He noted there was much less dust on this one than the