The room had become my prison within a prison.
I'd been brooding for hours, maybe days; time blurred in the windowless stone box they'd given me after the courtyard.
I sat with my back against the wall, knees drawn up, palms pressed to the scar on my collarbone like I could force it to speak louder. The bond had been waking up in fits and starts, flashes of cold rage, maps scratched in dirt, wolves gathering under sleet-heavy skies, a name whispered over and over: *Stonefang*. Kael was alive. He was moving. He was coming.
And every time the warmth pulsed stronger, guilt twisted in my gut.
Because I'd told Kain.
