جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 120

Kaelan had chosen the long route on purpose. He wanted to check if things were going according to plan. The main courtyards were loud with festival preparations. The banners being raised, extra tables carried into the great hall, the constant movement of servants and warriors. He needed air that did not taste of people asking and questioning his decisions and crowded voices. The outer grounds along the eastern wall were quieter. Only a few lanterns burned there, and the wind moved freely between the stone and the trees. He walked without hurry, his mind turning over the final security rotations for the Asheville party and the lower level seals Ryke had confirmed that morning. The heat in the tattoos across his back remained present but steady. Celeste was s

They buried Vira at the base of the ridge just before full dark. There was no proper ceremony. No elder to speak the old words. No time to dig a deep grave. The ground was hard and rocky, and the wolves who still followed him worked in silence with whatever tools they had. When the last of the earth was pushed over her, the small mound looked too shallow to hold everything she had been. Thorne stood at the edge of the tgrave and stared at it. The anger in him had gone past just anger. It sat cold and heavy behind his ribs. Vira was dead because of a mistake made on the road to Ravencrest. Because they had moved too far, too fast, with too little knowledge. Bec

The moment Celeste saw him clearly, her body moved before her mind finished the thought. She pushed away from the balcony rail and turned back into the corridor, skirts gathering in her hands as she walked fast and then faster. The sounds of the festival courtyard,  the sudden hush, the shift of guards, Kaelan’s voice giving orders followed her only for a few steps before the stone walls dulled them. She needed distance. She needed a closed door and a single clear breath that did not contain the sight of Thorne Voss standing on Ravencrest’s steps as if the past had simply walked up and demanded to be let in. When kaelan saw her he yelled. “Celeste.” 

 Seraphine staggered first. Her boots scraped against  stone. The air that filled her lungs was no longer the thin, strange air of the realm Lyssara had pulled them into. It smelled of smoke and old wood . Celeste was on her knees beside her, one hand pressed to the floor, silver hair still faintly glowing at the ends. Both of them were breathing hard. Neither of them spoke for several long seconds. Kaelan was already there. His injured shoulder was still bandaged from the attack. Blood had soaked through the cloth in a dark circle. His face was pale with pain and something sharper.

The guards who were holding him were shocked when the sky changed color. Thorne felt the shift in their grips a second before the first explosion rolled through the stone. The two men holding his arms tightened for a moment, then loosened as their heads snapped upward toward the open courtyard. Red light spilled across the black walls. Shouts rose from every direction. Somewhere near the east wall something large caught fire. That was all the opening he needed. Thorne drove his head backward into the face of the guard on his right. . The man cried out and lost his hold. Thorne twisted hard, tore his left arm free, and slammed an elbow into the second guard&rsq