She sees him gasping, struggling. She gets off him for the moment it takes to pour him a drink from a bottle of expensive brandy. He wonders if she stole it from the main house. He drinks it in one straight go and holds the glass out for another. She pours even more this time. Looking around the room, he thinks that maybe it isn’t hers after all. The room is furnished, but there are no woman things around. No clothes, jewelry, or toiletries. Not even an attempt at making it personal.

A skint room with a bottle of brandy on the bedside table?

Yeah, a man definitely lives here. He’d bet any money this is where that fool Anto sleeps. Or used to, anyway, before he fucked off to wherever he went.

He turns to Riya to give her hell about Anto, but there’s that look in her eye again.

And look at that, he’s drunk enough for another try.

Afterward, he rolls off her. She seems glad to get rid of his weight. He’s exhausted. Feels like he could sleep for a week straight, maybe even longer. He turns over and closes his eyes. He really shouldn’t stay, but what’s she going to do, kick him out? Soon enough he’s off to dreamland. Thankfully, without the actual dreams.

He wakes up to discover that he’s still in the same shitty backwater that he went to sleep in. A shitty backwater, yes, but at least he’s got a roof over his head and seems to be in a nice bed. There’s supposed to be somebody beside him, but he can’t remember who because his head is shaking. Or is it the bed? Wait, no. The walls are moving, rumbling. Actually, it’s the whole fucking room.

Realizing where he is, and the specifics of living in this particular cursed place, Dao remembers his earthquake training. He throws an arm out to grab the little maid but finds her long gone. So he rolls off the mattress and underneath the bed.

A moment later the room tilts and a part of the wall comes crashing down around him. There’s another rattle, a tremor, the feeling of the ground under him being ripped apart.

It feels like he’s in hell, but it’s really the Ring of Fire. This goddamn, blighted backwater nowhere cursed with frequent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

He’d be safe if he was in his own room, not the staff lodging. The main house is reinforced and would have fared better, but of course nobody really gives a damn about the servants. This building was never properly addressed. This house of death, where the expendables live.