Chapter 4 The First Fracture

• They left me alone in the chamber for most of the afternoon, and I used every minute of it.
• I counted footsteps in the hallway outside, learned the rhythm of the guard change, two wolves swapped out every few hours, sloppier near the evening meal when hunger made them careless. I traced the seams of the stone walls with my fingers, found the window too narrow for a grown man's shoulders and the door too solid to force. I catalogued exits, distances, the layout of the corridor beyond, filing every detail away the way my mother had taught me before Blackthorn wolves ever set foot near our den.
• Weakness. Every stronghold had one. I intended to find Riven's.