Night in the Northern Wastes didn’t feel like night anywhere else.
It wasn’t quiet.
It wasn’t peaceful.
It wasn’t dark.
It was watchful.
The air inside the stronghold thrummed with tension so thick it felt alive. Every corridor we walked through echoed with muttered voices, hurried footsteps, metal scraping against metal. I could feel the eyes following me some curious, some wary, some filled with hatred barely held in check.
Halverson had assigned two guards to escort us to a temporary room bare walls, a steel cot, and a small heater that rattled like it might explode at any moment.
Kira scanned the walls twice, checked under the cot, then checked again.
I smirked.
“Expecting assassins under the bed?”
“No,” she said. “I expect them to be on the ceiling.”
I opened my mouth to
