Riley

The heat from the massive stone fire pit in the middle of the cavern room was warming the cold air, and I sat on a low wooden bench with my legs spread wide while Silas unrolled our leather scroll across a big flat rock between us. Fantine was sitting on the bench right beside me, her eyes fixed on an old woman who was sitting across the fire pit, because the old woman had known her mother before Dante’s men raided the lower mountain villages twenty years ago.

"Your mother was the strongest fighter in our royal line, Fantine, and she fought off four syndicate guards near the lower...