“Can I look at this painting for a moment?” I asked, nodding to the one closest to the mysterious room. Upon actually looking at it, I winced. The painting was of a rather well-endowed nude man cradling his . . . endowment.
Before I could exhale, he charged me. The man had to be in his seventies, but he moved like a jungle cat. I must have screeched as I dropped my sword like a hotcake and sprinted in the opposite direction.
The panic attacks I suffered, medically speaking, were just a torrential influx of adrenaline. But when I was ensnared by them, it was nearly debilitating. Very hard to see that as some kind of untapped power.
“I did this,” I said, unable to move. “What are you talking about?” “I told Halden that your banquet was with King Eryx. That you were hoping to make an alliance.”