<div class="floatright">(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/digitalpirana/sithesis_zps337570f4.jpg)</div>The cavernous, god-forsaken mountain that held Maeryn was unforgiving. It had been cold for thousands of lifetimes, sustaining itself from the heat it sucked from everything it swallowed. The lightless pit she stared into stretched upwards, its maddening blackness licking her soul with the promise that it would be there whether she closed her eyes or not. The mountain wanted her, it wanted her deep in its freezing heart.<br/><br/>Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, in that twilight of consciousness where reality and dreams bleed together she becomes aware of his presence. He’s a feeling that crawls up her backbone and pools in the back of her mind, where her madness resides.<br/><br/><em>“Awaken...”</em>She can feel his voice thrum in her ear but he’s nowhere close. Her chains are unexplainably gone and she’s no longer on the beam. The Orc guards are gone, and there is no sign they were ever there.<br/><br/>He is standing some distance away. He is a lean rake of alabaster, masterfully carved and balanced. Shadows draped his flawless flesh like the royal robes of a black king, wreathing him in eerie contrast that haunts his every exposed hollow. Only goatskin pants hang from his hips, so too does a piece of bone that looks to be some kind of crude ceremonial knife.<br/><br/><em>“Have you prayed for Hahrutyne to save you?”</em><br/><br/>His eyes glittered death in the darkness.<br/>