The secret passage.The same narrow corridor where he had once hidden from knights intent on punishment, or where he had stolen hours of solitude when he did not want to train with them but rather train in silence.
The Silverstone patriarch had foreseen this. He was a man of wisdom, tempered by hard choices and a lifetime of war. He understood that the keep—though the strongest, most secure structure in the castle—was also a gilded cage. To those who sought safety within its stone embrace, it could just as easily become a prison. And so he devised a secret passage, a lifeline known only to the heirs of Silverstone.
Sigfred had never brought Asael here, though he had spoken of it once, in passing. The knowledge itself carried weight. To share it was to gamble with the future of his bloodline.
