Chapter 145

• Dane
• The woods smelled terrible like the still sour stench of dried blood trickling from a crumbling shack. Lusia clung taut against me, a wisp of breath caught in the sickle moon's glow pale. Crusted blood stains raked by a gloved guard dripping crimson when suddenly a light pierced the gloom; a ring, small and silver, tumbling from the dirt like a traitor's whispered confession. I bent, whispered my cloak over frost-kissed earth, and snatched it, the diamond flaring like a trapped star.
• A smirk carved my lips, sharp as a honed blade. This ring-gaudy, ostentatious; its facets screamed wealth—was owned here by a man of means, and only in my pack, council members velvet-clad vipers strutted such trinkets with unchecked access to my house, my woods. The noose tightened.