The chambers were still lit when Elaria rose.
Beside her, Draven slept, his wide chest rising and falling in a steady beat, as if his body had been aching for a break after too many days of stress. In the firelight, a tiny shine appeared on the scar across his ribcage. His hand still groped for her where she had been, even in sleep.
She stayed for a while, seeing the wolf that had turned into her fulcrum. Curling into the warmth and losing herself in the delusion that the world outside these walls no longer pressed in was the allure of slipping back under the furs.
But illusion would not save them.
The council would reconvene in two nights. Rhovan would come armed with more than words. The weapon he had been implying, the blade he had not yet drawn, was somewhere in his arsenal. Ge
