"Chains can scare the body, but they cannot touch a spirit that refuses to bow."
My boots struck the marble with measured rhythm as we ascended the steps from the lower levels. The sound should have been ordinary, but in the silence, it echoed like a drumbeat before war. Behind me, the guards shifted nervously, the scrape of their armor betraying unease. But no sound was louder than the one that was not there, the clinking of chains.
The Omega wolf was no longer shackled. I could still feel the ghost of those chains on my hands, the cold bite of iron when I had ordered the guards to unfasten them. And I could still hear the hesitant jingle of keys when Riven, with all the casual arrogance of a cat batting a toy, had plucked them from a terrified soldier and set her free.
