Emily Rosewood’s Point of View.
Raven Hollow and the Deadlands, seven weeks after the gate closed
The First Hinge slept for three straight days.
She lay in the healer’s cabin on a bed of wolf-fur and moon-woven linen, so still she might have been carved from alabaster. Healers came and went with sacred sage, silver bells, and bowls of steaming herbs, but nothing roused her. Her breathing was so shallow I had to lean close to be sure her chest still rose. Her pulse fluttered like a trapped moth.
I never left her side.
I told myself it was duty, but the truth was deeper. Something inside my ribs thrummed whenever I looked at her, the same chord the Moonstone had once struck, only softer, older, sadder. Like hearing an echo of my own heartbeat from a thousand years away.
On the third mo
