Natalie POV
The grand gallery doors groaned open precisely as the bronze bells struck the final chime of the dawn watch. The sound was a heavy, industrial declaration that rippled through the freezing air of the keep, calling the fractured remnants of the northern aristocracy to heel. The long corridor leading from the private solar was lined with sixty elite vards of the heavy cavalry, their silver spears held at a rigid, overlapping angle that formed a gleaming canopy of cold steel above our heads.
I walked beside Richard, my shoulder perfectly aligned with his flank, my chin tilted high enough to completely ignore the row of armored guards bowing in trembling unison as we passed.
The midnight-blue wool of my gown dragged across the polished obsidian tiles with a slow, mechanical rhyt
