Rowan didn't look like a woman who expected forgiveness.
She looked like a woman who expected history to protect her.
Sable didn't see the moment Rowan was brought into the lower chamber, but she felt it anyway, the way the pack house shifted when something important moved through it. Even sealed behind a barred door in the upper wing, she could read the rhythm in distant footsteps, the way voices lowered, the way guards changed posts without calling it a change. Grimridge was holding its breath again, not from fear of Alden's ridge pressure, but from the deeper fear of realizing the threat had been living in their routines for longer than anyone wanted to admit.
