The voice from below came again.
"Bring the girl."
Nobody moved for a beat.
Not Kael. Not Selene. Not Mira. Not even Ronan.
Lyria stood there with her wolf still racing under her skin and felt the words hit her like a hand around the back of the neck. The stairs in the broken wall were still open. Cold air was coming up from them. It smelled like stone, dust, and old blood.
Kael was the first one to react. He turned slightly, still half in wolf shape, and every line in his body said the same thing.
No one gets to her.
The rider with the map had gone still too. He stared down at the opening like he knew exactly what had just changed.
Selene's face had gone white.
Not pale. White.
Lyria noticed that first.
"Don't go down there," Selene said.
That got everyone's attention.
Kael shifted back enough to speak. "You know whose voice that was."
Selene did not answer right away. She kept her eyes on the stairs.
"Yes," she said finally. "And that's the problem."
