The word sat in the air like a blade mid-swing.
Dhaelon.
Arin felt it before she understood it. Not the meaning — she understood the meaning fine. Dhaelon had escaped. Dhaelon was coming. Dhaelon had marched three hundred hollow-eyed soldiers into the capital like a man taking a morning stroll.
No. What she felt was the charm.
It woke the moment Ryven said the name. Not a pulse this time, not the sluggish, nauseating throb she'd grown used to over the last two days. This was different. This was a yank. A fishhook buried somewhere behind her sternum, pulling northeast, pulling toward the walls, pulling toward him.
She locked her knees. Bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper.
Not now. Not here. Not in front of all of them.
