Perhaps it would be better to forget her, he mused. Yet her happiness mattered to him. Gaborn still felt numb; his breathing came ragged, and he trembled.

Both of them bore wounds from this war, and these deep cuts were just the beginning.

But we cannot give in to pain, Gaborn thought. It is a Runelord’s duty to place himself between his vassals and danger, to take the enemy’s blows, so that fragile people do not have to suffer.

Though Gaborn felt hurt beyond telling, he did not weep, and he did not let himself mourn his loss. Just as, he vowed, he’d never let himself flinch in the face of danger.

Yet he feared that this day, these deeds, would haunt his dreams.

Gaborn’s Days stood behind him, under the elm. Gaborn said, “I missed you, Days. I’d not have thought it, but I missed your presence.”

“As I missed you, Your Lordship. I see you have had a little adventure.”

It was the Days’ way of asking Gaborn to fill in the blanks in his knowledge. It occurred to Gaborn that the Days did not really know how many things had happened to him, how he’d given himself to the Earth, or how he’d read the Emir of Tuulistan’s book, or how he’d fallen in love.

“Days, tell me,” Gaborn said, “in ancient times, the men and women of your order were called the ‘Guardians of Dream.’ Is that not right?”

“Long ago, in the South, yes,” the Days answered.

“Why is that so?”

“Let me ask you another question, Your Lordship. When you dream, do you sometimes find yourself wandering through familiar lands, to places unconnected?”

“Yes,” Gaborn said. “There is a path behind my father’s palace in Mystarria, and in my dreams, when I ride my horse behind it, I sometimes find myself in the fields behind the Room of the Heart, which is at least forty miles from the palace, or I ride through those fields and find myself by a pond in the Dunnwood. Is this significant?”

“It is only the sign of an organized mind, trying to make sense out of the world,” his Days answered.

“Then how does this answer my question?” Gaborn asked.

“In your dreams, there are paths you fear to tread,” the Days answered. “Your mind shies from the memory, but they too are part of the landscape of dream. Do you remember them, also?”

Gaborn did. As the Days spoke, he remembered a time many years ago, when he’d been traveling with his father in the mountains, and his father had wanted him to ride up a trail through a steep, narrow ravine of black stone, where cobwebs hung between the rock. “I remember.”