"Have you and the rest of the staff already recovered the bodies?" Owain asked as he stepped carefully across the charred threshold. His boots crunched on debris that mixed ash with fragments of broken earthenware, burned wood, and even bits of melted pewter candlesticks and ornaments.
The acrid stench of smoke still clung to everything, mingling with the sour smell of wet ash and something else, something that had been alive once and left an unpleasant scent that made his nose wrinkle in distaste. Cold rain dripped steadily through the collapsed sections of the roof, creating dark puddles that reflected the gray sky above and turned the ash into a black, greasy mud that clung to his riding boots and stained the hem of his fur-trimmed cloak.
