#a world lit by fire

There was no natural light or heat in the dungeon.  No sun, no cleansing breezes, no fresh water.  There was only dampness, stinks and cold.  It was a world lit only by fire.

And fire was not the prisoners’ friend.  The braziers that warmed the clerks who took notes off the interrogation did not warm her.  The others were clothed but she was not.  The torches that lit the work of the interrogators and the clerks did not warm her only illuminated her suffering in the dark, picking out her vulnerable body for the rope and the lash and the mocking of the watchers.

Until the fire came too close; far to close.  The fires that burned, that heated the pinchers and the pokers, that illuminated her secret places.  As if she had any secrets left.  No the fire burned, and in this world lit only by fire it was not her friend.