The Keep slept under a heavy snowfall.
The flurries had started at dusk, slow and gentle, but by midnight the wind had picked up, rattling shutters and burying the courtyards in white. Most of the guards huddled under cloaks at their posts, eyes stinging from the cold. The perfect night for someone to move unnoticed.
Elinora wasn’t sleeping.
The obsidian disk sat on the table beside her bed, the faintest pulse of black light throbbing from its carvings every few minutes. She had tried to ignore it — truly tried — but the pull it exerted was constant, like a second heartbeat calling for her attention.
Touch me, the voice whispered. One more time.
She sat with her knees drawn up, cloak wrapped around her shoulders. She told herself she was strong enough to resist. She had, after all, re
