"I'm going to do this, and I am going to do it right. I will survive, come back alive and well, gain my freedom and be the free woman that my mother wanted me to be"
Odi pulled the leather straps of her satchel tighter across her chest, her fingers trembling slightly as they fastened the buckle. She didn't understand why her hands were shaking. It wasn't cold. Not in the early morning light that poured through the high stone windows of her chamber. Not in the familiar rhythm of footsteps echoing down the corridor outside. But fear had its own temperature—cold and sharp and buried deep in her bones.
She was scared.
There. She admitted it.
Scared of the journey ahead. Of the dangers she couldn't see and the ones she already imagined. Of being followed. Of being caught. Of dying in some cursed cave with a stolen Heartstone clutched in her broken hands.
She exhaled slowly and stared at her reflection in the foggy bronze mirror.
