The tower room did not smell of lard or old vein-blood; it smelled of dry parchment, charcoal dust, and the sharp, chemical tang of fresh ink.
Selene stood before the tall arched window of the Blood Moon’s secondary war room, her hands resting lightly on the cold stone ledge. The flax shift had been thrown into the hearth fires, and with it, the final, pathetic remnants of her kitchen submission. In its place, she wore a simple, unadorned wool tunic of dark charcoal gray, clean, heavy enough to keep out the mountain draft, and free of the silver thread that had once marked her status in the south.
Her wrists, though still tender beneath the clean linen wraps Jaxon had provided, were entirely free of iron. The silver-flecked cuffs lay rotting in some cistern corner, but the phantom weight
