By midday, the cold gray sky had turned the color of lead, threatening rain over the Northern stronghold.
Inside the clinic, the rhythmic scraping of metal against stone grated on Elara’s last nerve.
She stood by the narrow high window of her apothecary backroom, crushing dried feverfew into a fine powder with an iron mortar and pestle. Every time she looked through the grimy glass, she did not see the tranquil pine forest or the distant snowy peaks of the mountain ridge. She saw armor. Polished steel, heavy leather, and the snarling dire-wolf sigil of the royal vanguard.
Six elite warriors stood in an unyielding formation directly outside the clinic’s heavy timber doors. Four more patrolled the narrow path that wound toward her private cottage behind the herb garden. Whenever an appren
