Three days. Kael counted them by the distant, rhythmic drip of water and the changing quality of the torchlight when guards brought meager rations. Three days of silver fire in his veins, of shadow suffocated, of the spear-scar pulsing like a second heart. Three days of imagining what Silas was doing to Elara, to Cassian, to the pack.
On the fourth day, they came for him.
Ronan led the escort, his face unreadable. Four warriors flanked Kael, silver chains still binding his wrists, their ends held like leashes. They marched him through corridors he'd known since childhood, now transformed into alien thoroughfares of hostile stares and whispered curses. Pack members, he'd grown up with spat at his feet. Mothers pulled children from his path.
The great hall had been transformed. The long t
