Chapter 17. The Flame’s Test

No ceremony; no warning—just the scrape of the heavy door and the clank of iron on stone as they forced him to his knees. The guards’ faces were hidden behind the mirrored visors of their helms, but Neriah could feel their eyes, cold and assessing, from behind the glass. The chamber was all bare stone, lit by a single circle of moonlight spilling from a high window. It made the dust on the floor shimmer, each mote a tiny ghost.

Elias.

She hadn’t seen him in years, but the sight was like an old wound torn open. Stormfang warrior—mid-rank, but always Caius’s shadow. His brown hair was longer now, tangled and dirty. The jaw was still crooked from the fight in the river when she was thirteen—an old grudge, a memory that tasted of river water and blood and laughter turned mean. The faint, pale scar on his cheek was hers; she’d thrown boiling water at him during that last winter. He’d laughed as the skin blistered, laughed louder when they branded her.

Now he knelt, batt