Chapter 4 — Chapter Four

First Person

Shouts echo through Blackthorn Hold, torchlight flickering as I’m hauled through a maze of stone corridors.

I thrash against my captor, but his iron arm tightens around my waist, unyielding as the walls closing in around us. Even if I broke free, where would I go? To Malric? To my father’s chambers, where I’d be bartered like a trinket at market? The thought fuels my struggle, though I know it’s futile.

Trapped as I am, something feral claws loose inside me, a caged beast tearing at my ribs. It’s not hopelessness that surges through me, but a scorching anger—unleashed at last since the day my mother died, her lifeless hand slipping from mine. That memory stokes the heat in my veins, burning away the stone I’ve become.