“What kind of animal makes scratches like those?” she asked Chaol, but didn’t need to hear his reply to know that his guess was as good as hers. The claw marks were deep—a quarter of an inch at least. She crouched beside one and ran her finger along the interior edge. It was jagged, but cut clean into the stone floor. Her brows knotting, she scanned the other claw marks.
“There’s no blood in these claw marks,” she said, twisting her head to look over her shoulder at Chaol. He knelt beside her as she pointed to them. “They’re clean.”
“Which means?”
She frowned, fighting the chill that ran down her arms. “Whatever did this sharpened its nails before it gutted him.”
“And why is that important?”
She stood, looking up and down the hallway, then squatted again. “It means this thing had time
