Nobody moved for what felt like a very long time.
Malrik had his blade fully drawn without my noticing him draw it, and Dren had gone still in the particular way he went still before deciding whether stillness was still the right choice, and below us Ironkeep sat dark and silent against the cliff face, seven thousand windows holding not one single point of light between them, while the wind off the Howling Cliffs climbed into something that scraped the inside of my ear like a fingernail dragged too slow across stone.
"That's not a siege," Krix said finally, quiet, his eyes gone glassy in the way they did when ThreadSight was pulling harder than he wanted it to. "I'd know a siege. I've felt enough of them secondhand this year to recognize the shape. This is something the city's doing to itself."
"On purpose?" Rena asked.
"I think so. I don't love how sure I am about that, but I think so."
