I bite back my urge to protest the slur as I hold Basyl in a loose embrace, still rattled by Heelyn’s reaction to my honesty a few nights back. I’m clear I could lose more than my position and friends here if I’m not careful. All I’ve ever wanted and worked for is to someday return to Zhilaan to uphold and protect the weather forces of the Northeast, a vital part of the broad Eastern Realm alliance.

But if I fall in with Trystan, that dream could become an impossibility.

Basyl’s smile is sultry as he waits for my reply. We’re reclined against a wall in one of the many hallways surrounding the labyrinthine Wyvernguard archives, the library cut into the obsidian stone beneath the base of the North Island, submerged below the Vo River.

Submerged like my frustrating draw to Trystan Gardner, I sullenly consider. I glance toward the door at the end of the hall, Trystan just past this wall somewhere, studying in the archives. As I stand guard.

Basyl’s expectant look turns quizzical when I don’t answer him, the hard angles of his sculpted Elfin features softened by the sapphire lantern light.

Yes, I still have to trail the Crow, and it’s turning my world upside down, I yearn to confide in him.

To say the words that will have me instantly shunned, despised, unwanted.

Just like the Gardnerian.

My internal conflict rears as I consider how the rough treatment of Trystan during weapons exercises hasn’t let up. But still, Trystan goes back, day after day. Stoically working with the Vu Trin as they test different runic combinations to learn how best to deflect his Mage power and deal with his surprising ability to infiltrate their runes. They attack him in ever-increasing numbers, and he endures their blows, even when soldiers purposely hurt him, to the point where Ung Li has had to step in a number of times.

It’s escalated to the level where I quietly offered Trystan support a few days back when I caught sight of him checking his wand arm during a break, the bright, angry bruising down its entire length sparking a livid outrage inside me.

“I’ll go with you to Ung Li’s chambers to talk to her,” I said as we stood apart by the terrace’s stone wall. “It’s not right that they treat you like this.”