The silence in the workshop was a physical thing, a pressure on the eardrums. It was the quiet of a landslide gathering its final momentum before the fall. Every eye was locked on Corvin's hand, on the moon-silver knife that seemed to drink the light from the room. His knuckles were white around the polished oak handle.
Kaelen's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the stillness. He had gambled everything on this moment, on appealing to the man's logic, on showing him a better way. But staring into Corvin's flinty eyes, he saw not a rational leader, but a cornered animal. He had offered the wolf a seat at the table, but the wolf only knew how to be the apex predator in a barren land. This verdant, ordered world was a cage to his nature.
