Outside, the capital's main street that usually roared with life, voices, wagon wheels, and the distant clang of a smith was unusually somber. Yet the hidden chamber on the third floor of an inn felt as if the world had been muted to a soft, dangerous silence.. The smell of incense filled the air, masking the smell of herbs.
Lara lay on the narrow bed, pale beneath a linen sheet, breathing shallowly and quickly. Jethru knelt at her side, his fingers steady as he pressed a clean cloth to the jagged arrow wound in her forearm, his jaw tight with concentration. A handful of thin cuts marred her arms and collarbone—tokens of the frantic escape from mountains of Alta-Sierra to the palace of Zura.
Her skin burned with fever; a faint sheen of sweat darkened her hairline. When she shifted, the mattress creaked, and a small groan escaped her.
"Why is her fever not subsiding?" Alaric asked, voice cracked with worry. He stood by the crack in the wall, looking out
