Sparrow gets up and pads over to where Thierren is sleeping. She lies down on the hard stone facing him, her eyes drinking in his beloved face as she watches him breathe.

I love you, she mouths before the dark of sleep claims her, as well.

Sparrow has a beautiful dream.

She’s lying next to Thierren in a cave with shimmering saffron walls lit by candlelight, his forest eyes intent on her. She reaches up to caress his cheek, and his eyes widen with surprise as she slides under his blanket then wraps her arms around him. He lets out a hard exhale, then enfolds her in a loving embrace.

Sparrow sighs and sinks into him, into the gorgeous dream, his heartbeat strong against hers, their bodies pressed against each other. It feels right. So right.

Like finding her true home—not the East at all, but him.

She presses her lips to the warm nape of his neck, a thrill singing through her as Thierren shivers against her. She strokes his back, his side, his shoulder, his body responding to her brazen touch, her own body warming.

“I want you,” she breathes against his neck.

“Sparrow,” he whispers huskily, his breathing uneven as he moves back a fraction. “I think you’re dreaming. Wake up, love.”

Sparrow blinks, the haziness of the cavern solidifying, the soft, amber candlelight disappearing to be replaced by a Noi rune stone’s cold blue light.

Mortification seizes hold, catapulting Sparrow out of her half-dream state as she looks at Thierren with wide-eyed remorse. “I’m sorry,” she manages in a strangled voice before an exclamation sounds from across the cavern’s expanse.

She turns to find Ulluwyn’s furious glare knifing into her. “Crow whore,” the Vu Trin bites out in Uriskal.

Sparrow pulls away from Thierren and rolls onto her back, shame ripping through her. She closes her eyes to wall it all off, her hands coming up to hide her face.

“Sparrow,” Thierren says, sounding as strangled by emotion as she feels, but she just can’t bring herself to look at him, so great is the conflict storming inside her.

Finally, she meets his gaze. “I can’t, Thierren,” she agonizes. “I just can’t speak of this until we’re in the East. I’m so sorry I threw myself at you like that...”

He nods, eyes glazed with feeling. “Wait, then,” he says, casting a sidelong glance toward Ulluwyn. “Wait until you’re settled in the East to decide how you feel about me.”

Sparrow nods tightly as the storm inside her churns and rages against the entire, godsforsakingly cruel world.

CHAPTER SIX

WYVERNGUARD

Trystan Gardner & Vothendrile Xanthile

The Wyvernguard
North Wyvernguard Island, Noilaan
Eastern Realm
Sixth Month

Vothendrile

“Still having to trail the Crow?” Basyl teasingly asks.