Elias POV
I had to get out, I had to breathe.
I had thought that after all I had seen in the Pits.
The blood-soaked sand, the sound of bone snapping under iron maces, the smell of entrails cooling in the night air, the cheering of crowds at bloody violence.
I thought, nothing could affect me anymore. I thought I had turned my heart into a stone that no emotion could skip across.
But I was wrong. Returning to Stormfang did not feel like a victory; it was a haunting.
The packhouse felt like a juke box filled with unhappy surprises, reminders of who I had been before tragedy struck.
Every corner I turned, I saw my mother's sweet smile, her hands stained blue as she and the women of the pack wove silken threads from the Eram pods.
When a door opened, I could see my father at the head of a group of hunters, returning home with their kills for the day.
