Chapter 075
Lucian's POV
The air that fell upon my cloak was cold as I urged my horse further on, the hooves of the animal unable to slow upon the frozen earth. Whispers of the messenger’s mouth preyed on my ears at the sound of each horse’s fall: Something’s wrong. You must come. Some kind of thing has gone in the Ironfang border that was unnatural.
By the time I got to the clearing, my fingers were numb with cold, but it wasn’t the biting wind that tortured vowels from my neck. No, it was deeper; it was more, gnawing my insides out. I could feel it, low down in my guts—the same dread that had hung there since the Ash-Born’s demise, the feeling of an impending rupture, the air heavy.
The clearing was dark, illuminated only by the pale surface of the moon above. The trees held their gr
