The knife hovered less than a breath from his throat. The edge glimmered faintly, catching the glow of a single dying ember, and the air between blade and skin grew sharp, cold, as if the steel itself drank the warmth from the tent. Ryon's hand locked around the assassin's wrist, his grip unshakable despite the fever that had stripped his body raw.
The assassin froze, muscles taut, breath sharp through his teeth. For a heartbeat the world held still. Outside, the camp lay wrapped in restless silence—snoring men, murmured dreams, the shifting of horses in their pickets—but within the tent only two lives existed, balanced on the razor's edge of steel.
Ryon's fingers dug deeper. He could feel the man's pulse hammering against his palm, quick and furious. He could feel the sweat on his skin, slick, betraying nerves the assassin's face tried to hide.
"You thought me broken," Ryon rasped, his voice raw with fever, yet steady as iron. "But you should have killed me at Hollow Pass."
