The corridor became a chokepoint of death. Armored bodies pressed forward, a wave of tarnished steel and plague-hollowed eyes. They were Kaelen’s loyalists, the desperate remnants of a dying pack, and they saw only a traitor to be slain. The frantic ringing of the alarm was a hammer beating against my skull, a rhythm for the s*******r to come.
Bane was a mountain of snarling fury at my side, his axe a crescent of deadly silver. Theron was a wraith at the other, his daggers ready. But we were three against a citadel. A glorious death was the best we could hope for.
I had not come this far to die gloriously. I had come to deliver a verdict.
“Hold,” I commanded, my voice not loud, but carrying a resonance of absolute zero that cut through the din.
I took one step forward, out of the study
