The sun rose like a dull coin over the Blood Moon Rogues' camp, painting the sky in ash gray light. Smoke from the dying fires curled into the air, and the sound of morning stirred slowly to life, boots against gravel, grunts from warriors stretching sore muscles, the rhythmic clang of steel against steel.
Inside the small hut she shared with Elira, Liora sat at the edge of her straw bed, staring out through the open flap. She hadn't slept much. The conversation with Dante last night, the quiet walk, the talk of strategy, the strange calm that existed between them kept replaying in her mind.
There had been something almost unsettling about it.
He had listened to her. Not as a commander humoring a soldier, not as a man indulging a woman but as an equal. That was something Gonzalo never did.
She rubbed her wrists absentmindedly, remembering the chain marks that still lingered faintly on her skin.
