Vale's fortress rose out of the misty morning like something carved directly from the mountainside it sat against, dark stone walls climbing higher than anything Wren had seen at the Ashgrove manor, and she felt Kane's hand tighten briefly around hers as they approached the outer gate under Ronan's promised escort, both of them still unsettled by the strange, unexplained visitor to their camp two nights prior.
Ronan met them at the gate himself, dressed formally now rather than in the rumpled garden clothes of their first meeting, and the guards standing watch at the entrance waved them through without question at his signal — the considerable advantage, Wren understood, of arriving as invited guests rather than desperate intruders sneaking over a wall in darkness.
"My father is occupied
