I didn’t sleep. Didn’t want to sleep. There were too many things running about in my head. I just lay still with my eyes closed.

Jakoven wanted power and he thought my blood might be the key to using Farsonsbane. My blood, or the blood of someone in my family—descended from dragons as we were. Oreg had said as much to me.

Jakoven wasn’t going to let us retreat in peace for long. Gods forbid he find out what Oreg was.

Alone, Hurog could not stand against the king, but if I threw Hurog behind Alizon, some of the Shavigmen would follow me. And if the rebellion took fire before Jakoven managed to get me or another Hurog-blood in his hands again to activate the Bane, we might be able to hold the king off for a few months.

But my objections to the rebellion were still valid. Essentially, there were too many nobles who would stand behind the king. In the end we would lose.

While I tried to chart a course with a possibility of survival, I was dimly aware of the door opening quietly and a murmured argument. The door shut and I was left once more in silence with my fears, but not left alone.

Every plan I came up with led to disaster sooner or later. I was in the middle of trying to see how we could lure the Seaforders to Alizon’s cause (something I wouldn’t have dreamed of without the Warder of the Sea’s little speech), when I experienced another of the debilitating bouts of miserable shaking. This time I itched as well.

A cool damp cloth wiped my face and then the rest of my body as armies of imaginary bugs trooped over my skin, driven away by the clean water and Tisala’s soft crooning.

She waited until the fit left me before she spoke. “Ward? Are you all right?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. She was supposed to be safe at Hurog. Jakoven had taken her once already.

She lit a small candle from the banked fire and set it in a holder on a table near my bed. The flickering candle lit her dark hair with red tones. The darkness of the window coverings told me I’d lain with my eyes closed longer than I’d thought—or I’d fallen asleep.

“As if I would sit in safety when I could help,” she said crisply. “I came to help get you out of the Asylum—though you got yourself out in the end.”

The Asylum. The drugs had left me with a pitiful handful of clear memories amidst the nightmare images. I closed my eyes in embarrassment. “You came while I was there. I thought I had made it up.” I thought of what a fool I must have looked like, hiding under the straw, and laughed.

“What?” she asked.