The Hound's Den wasn't a place for tea and conversation—it was a shadowed lair for extraction, where truths were tortured out of flesh and bone, or where sacrifices fueled dark rituals, blood spilled to empower spells that could topple rivals or bind loyalties.
Her grip tightened around the cup of tea, the porcelain cool against her palm, the liquid inside long since gone lukewarm.
This was why she avoided the outside world, why she kept her life compartmentalized like jars on a shelf—woodcutting by day, shadowy tasks by night, no bleed between the two.
Overthinking was her curse, a bad habit that turned simple jobs into labyrinths of doubt.
One stray order, and her mind spiraled: possibilities branching like frozen rivers, each path darker, more convoluted than the last.
She hated it more than anything—the gnawing uncertainty, the way it chipped at her control, forcing her to imagine outcomes she couldn't freeze solid.
