I pray this is one of my smaller mistakes. The scene before me feels as if it has been ripped from the darkest recesses of a nightmare. From one vantage point, my initial hunch proves true. Riven is bound to a chair at the center of a small but lavish room, blood trailing from his lips, a bruise blossoming around his right eye—silent testaments to the brutal blows I had heard. Yet, encircling him, are three ominous figures. Suddenly, memories of my tutelage in the castle resurface. Despite hours of lessons with esteemed tutors and professors, danger now stands before me, and all I can do is watch, paralyzed.

I reach for my dagger with trembling hands, fumbling frantically through my satchel. But I freeze, my gaze locking onto the blade, now resting perilously at Riven's throat. Slowly, I trace my eyes up the cloth-wrapped arm of the woman who holds it there. A thief. A cunning one at that, to act with such swiftness.