The Ashenclaw pack had been escorted into a temporary holding area within the kingdom's outer grounds under strict supervision, and long after the guards had resumed their duties with a tension that had not existed before their arrival.
Valen walked through the corridors with measured steps, her expression calm and unreadable to anyone who might cross her path, though her mind was anything but still.
Every detail replayed itself with sharp clearness, every word spoken by the pack's leader turning over and over in her thoughts as she tried to make sense of something that refused to fit into logic.
The memory of his voice echoed faintly, Valen's jaw tightened slightly.
"There's something wrong somewhere, I can feel it," she murmured under her breath, though this time the certainty behind the words was weaker than before.
Because too many impossible things had already happened, she was no longer in a position to dismiss anything outright.
