Chapter 10: Rafe's POV

Rafe's POV

I have given orders on four warships.

I have stood in front of a court-martial and never raised my voice.

I could not give an order to forty storm beasts, and I could not stop watching the woman who had.

She stood on the plain with her cropped hair full of ash and her hand on the biggest beast's head.

She was laughing.

I had never once heard her laugh in the five weeks she had been Cinderhold's Guide.

Something was wrong with that, and I meant to find out what.

That night I took her to the rage room.

It was a steel box under the east block with no window and a drain in the floor.

The walls were scarred by every man who had ever lost himself in it.

I walked her in, locked the door behind us, and put the key in my pocket.

She watched me do it.

"You're testing me," she said.

"Yes."

"What happens if I fail?"

"Then I'll know what you are."

She folded her arms.

She was a small woman, alone in a locked room with a man who had put his claws into three guards.

She did not look afraid.

I could not remember the last time someone had not looked afraid of me.

"All right," she said. "Test."

I let the beast come.

I have a way of doing it that I learned in the fleet, a loosening in the chest.

The panther rose behind my eyes, and the room went black and gold.

I heard her breath catch.

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