The climb back to the stronghold felt longer than the descent into the tunnels.
The cold deepened the closer they came to the inhabited levels, seeping through Elinora’s clothes despite the heat of the trial still lingering in her veins. The hum of the Heart hadn’t left her — it sat inside her now, steady and slow, a second heartbeat that would not quiet.
Riven walked a half-step ahead of her, his shoulders tense. Kaelen stayed at her side, his pace deliberately unhurried, as though daring Riven to outpace them.
No one spoke. The trial’s shadow hung over all three of them.
The first sign they were nearing the stronghold came in the form of voices — raised, overlapping, urgent. The main hall ahead glowed with torchlight, and the silhouettes of armed Nightblood warriors moved across the
