The storm had been clawing at the fortress for days. Wind howled through the arrow slits, dragging flurries of snow into the hallways, scattering candlelight into wild shapes.
Each gust rattled the stained-glass windows until their painted saints seemed to tremble. The shards of red and violet light that slipped through painted the flagstones like spilled blood.
Kellan paced through it, one hand pressed to his side, the other gripping the edge of a table already half-splintered from his temper. The silk around his torso had long since gone from white to crimson.
The wound had reopened—he could feel the heat of it, the wet pulse. The healer had warned him, begged him to stay still, to rest.
He had dismissed her before she could finish binding the last bandage.
"She'll bend," he muttered under his breath, steps uneven across the rug. "They always do." The words left his mouth in shreds, like prayer breaking on his tongue.
