The cabin was a coffin of rough-hewn logs, the air inside stagnant and smelling of damp earth, old pine, and the lingering, metallic tang of fear.
It was a place of hiding, a temporary scar on the landscape where two people waited for the world to stop hunting them.
The darkness inside was absolute, a heavy blanket that smothered the room, but Vaelith did not need light to know he was not alone.
He woke not with a groan or a stretch, but with the sudden, violent snap of a trap springing.
His senses, honed by years of violence and survival, screamed before his eyes even opened.
The air pressure in the small room had shifted.
There was a weight on the edge of the narrow cot, a presence that radiated a heat that had nothing to do with the fireless stove in the corner.
Vaelith's eyes fl
