They hurt you? Shall I kill them?

“No!” The sound suddenly burst from him in a shout. He jerked awake to find himself sprawled on his sweaty bedding in his small, smelly cabin. Around him, all was murkiness. No Hest, no Redding. Only himself. And a small copper dragon who pushed insistently at the walls of his thoughts. Dimly he felt her inquiry, her dull-witted concern for him. He pushed the contact away, shut his eyes tightly, and buried his face in the bundle that served him as a pillow. Just a bad dream, he told himself. Only a nightmare.

But it was one that was all too possibly real.

When he was morose, he thought that perhaps Hest had wanted to be rid of him for some time. Perhaps his defending of Alise had given Hest the excuse he was looking for to send Sedric away.

He could, by an effort of will, recall how it had been when they first began. Hest’s calmness and strength had drawn him. In moments alone, in Hest’s strong embrace, he felt like he had finally found safe harbor. Knowing that shelter existed for him had made him stronger and bolder. Even his father had seen the change in him and told him that he took pride in the man his son was becoming.

If he’d only known!

When had Hest’s strength stopped being a shelter and become a prison wall? When had it become, not the comfort of protection, but the threat of that strength turned against him? How could he have continued unaware of how things had changed, of how Hest was changing him? He hadn’t, he admitted now. He’d known. But he’d stumbled on blindly, excusing Hest’s cruelty and slights, blaming the discord on himself, pretending that somehow, things would go back to the way they had once been.

Had it ever really been that good? Or was it all a dream he had manufactured for himself?

He rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow and closing his eyes. He would not think about Hest or how things had once been between them. He would not dwell on what their relationship had become. Right now, he did not even have the heart to try to imagine something better for them. There had to be a better dream somewhere. He wished he could imagine what it was.

“ARE YOU AWAKE?”

He hadn’t been but now he was. A slice of light was falling into Sedric’s room from the open door. The silhouette standing in it had to be Alise. Of course. He sighed.

As if that were an invitation, she ventured into the room. She didn’t close the door behind her. The rectangle of light fell mostly on the floor, illuminating dropped clothing. “It’s so dark in here,” she said apologetically. “And close.”