Rage was a better fuel than hope.
Hope had left her weeping and weak, a fool praying for a savior who looked at her with a stranger's eyes. Rage, however, was a cold, clean fire. It burned away the useless emotions, the what-ifs and the if-onlys, leaving behind a hard, sharp edge of purpose.
She spent her days in the Wolf's Chamber pacing. Back and forth, from the warded door to the barred window, a caged wolf learning the dimensions of its prison. The pain in her leg was a dull, constant throb, a familiar companion she no longer bothered to curse. It was a part of her now, a reminder of what she had survived. A promise of what she still had to do.
Her mind was a whirlwind, spinning the threads of the past weeks into a coherent tapestry of betrayal. Aelina's murder. Dhaelon's leash. Vaeren's manipulations. Elyra's jealousy. Auren's weakness. And Caldan… Caldan's cold, dead eyes.
