Talia's countenance remained a mask of carved stone. The sharp lines of her face were unyielding to the heavy air of the room.
When she spoke, her voice was a draft of glacial air—distant and hollowed of all warmth.
"Yes," she murmured. "It has been a lifetime, hasn't it?"
A faint, ghostly tremor of a smile brushed the other woman's lips. It was a weary expression that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"You haven't changed, Talia. Still as composed and elegant as the day I last saw you."
Talia finally deigned to look up, her gaze unreadable. "I fear I cannot return the compliment, Eloise."
Her amber eyes swept over Eloise's ravaged form. The woman looked skeletal, a mere specter wrapped in heavy, suffocating linens.
Her skin was like translucent parchment, marred by the violent interruptions of a hacking cough. Her fingers trembled like fallen leaves even as they clawed at the bedsheets.
She was fragile—a broken shadow of the formidable woman she once was.
