POV: Tristan
I stood on the training battlements, my breath hitching in the freezing dawn air. The Iron Ridge "guests" had been in the manor for less than twelve hours, and already the atmosphere had soured from cautious hostility to a jagged, hair-trigger tension. Sandra was pacing the lower courtyard, her red hair a sharp contrast to the gray stone, while Alex was perched on the highest spire like a gargoyle, his dual daggers catching the first weak rays of the sun.
"They're not just watching the horizon," Rena whispered, stepping up beside me. She was wrapped in the heavy, fur-lined cloak I’d given her, but her eyes were fixed on the deep, shadowed valley to the north. "They're waiting for something to break."
"They're waiting for us to fail," I said, my hand instinctively finding he
