The ash still clung to my cloak when I returned to the hall. Smoke drifted in slow ropes beneath the high vaults; the carved lions on the cornices looked as if they had been weeping soot. The Maharaja lay in the inner sanctum upon a stretcher, attended by Dhanvantari and two surgeons whose hands were steady despite the night's horrors. His breath came thinly, each exhale a small disaster. The steward's face had grown older by ten years.