Hope was a dangerous, unfamiliar country. Ryven had not set foot there in years.
He stood in the shadows of the tower corridor, the silence broken only by the soft chime of the ward sealing Arin back in her cage. He had left her with a promise—I will make him believe—but the words felt like ash in his own mouth. How do you make a man believe a truth he has already decided is a lie?
He turned from the door, his mind a cold, calculating machine, already processing the new, explosive variable Arin had thrown onto the board.
Aelina. Murdered.
