RA'

slowed, her eyelids fluttering with calculated fragility. To an

e senses, she was as

t her ribs like a trapped bird. Her scent was an open wound in the air-shar

hite floor. "Janice! Goddess, somebody bring a healer! Look what you've do

"Apologize? To a thief who faints the mom

n. She waved toward the guards stationed at the heavy timber doors

heir political weight to drag this into backroom council debates. They wou

t here, in the open air, where eve

dows lining the western wall of the sanctuary. We stood in the High Hall of t

h and thrust the tall, stain

napping my hair across my face and whipping the white hem of my to

back to

his mind could fully grasp it. His ja

answer him

ith a clumsy, snarling swipe to block me, but I drove my heel down onto his broken collarbone.

away, my hand clamped aro

he loose, sensitive skin and nerve cluster at the base of her skull, her body stiffened in pu

ciousness vanished

ing uselessly against the stone as I hauled her across the

p her!" someone scre

stone sill and shoved her upper half

. Half her body dangled three stories above the jagged rocks. The freezing gale battered her face, tearing tea

ward the window, paralyzed by the terror that a single twitch o

onto the back of her neck, my face

voice ice-cold against her ringing ears. "Tell

! I'll die!" she wailed, her bladder ne

er my shoulder a

sped, his face

ess that you broke into the Weeks apothecary to steal my mother's Hearth-Stone. Confess that you planned to us

inch. Janice slipped down two inches, a

aths through the blood on his cheeks. "We took it! Janice wanted the stone, and my mot

l into a stunned, horrified silence. The honorable Hodge f

iron doors burst open, and six armored Pack Wardens, cloaked in black w

ell of her ear. "Remember this drop, Janice. Next time you re

d her backward and tossed her trembling, weeping for

their spears lowered. The private feud was