Tarin stopped pretending to be small.
The change was so clean Lena almost tasted it: a soft-spoken man stripped off like an old cloak, and beneath stood something sharpened on purpose. His eyes went winter-silver, not the accidental kind, but the color of coins hammered thin and cruel. His shoulders unrolled. His mouth became a thin crescent that promised nothing but the truth of a blade.
“You,” Lena said, the word coming out like a breath she’d been holding for days. Fury and relief rode it together—fury for the dead, relief because the lie finally had a face. “You were the knife all along.”
Tarin inclined his head as if she’d solved a riddle. “And you were the storm they warned me about.” His gaze slid to Dominic, to Kael, back to Lena. “Good. It’s uglier when the heroes disappoint me
