Cassian's POV

The woman who stood before us was worn down in a way that spoke of horrors endured. Her hair, once perhaps blonde, had turned prematurely silver, hanging in brittle strands around a face carved with deep lines. But it was her eyes that caught me, they were hollow, haunted, the eyes of someone who'd seen too much and survived anyway.

She couldn't have been more than thirty, yet she looked fifty.

"My name is Elena," she said, her voice rough, as if speaking still felt foreign. "I ...