She passed the sitting area to the lone bed and couldn’t hold back a tired smile. Jaren had the influence to get them a large room at a reputable inn, but somehow, he’d still made sure to find a room with only one bed.

Typical.

“I had a nightmare,” she began, grabbing a second tunic from their supply bag and wrapping it around her wet curls. Then she climbed up on the bed, leaning back against the pillows and tucking her feet under the blankets.

“At least, I think that’s what it was. It was…” she shuddered. “It was horrible.”

His motions paused for a moment before he continued stoking the fire to life. “Was it about Trey?”

She winced, her heart squeezing at the sound of her friend’s name. In the grand scheme of life, she hadn’t known Trey all that long, but she missed him all the same.

She’d dreamt about him often at the beginning of their trip to Bhasura, her mind determined to torture her with the last look he’d given her before she left, breaking her heart again and again.

“No, it wasn’t about him. And I honestly don’t know how I could’ve fallen asleep. It was more like…like a vision or something. I was here one second and then gone the next.”

He turned at that, giving her his full attention. “What do you mean?”

“It felt real, Jaren. As real as sitting here next to you.”

His brow creased, and he crossed the room, climbing onto the bed to sit beside her. “Is this the first time something like this has happened?”

“Yes,” she stopped, pressing her lips into a thin line. Was this the first time she’d had a dream like this? She’d always had vivid ones, even as a child, and there’d definitely been times she’d struggled to separate them from reality.

Back then they’d been more like flashes, but they’d been just as real. She’d lost count of how many times she’d awoken as a child with a woman’s laughter in her ears, or the smell of blood in her nose.

Then there was that day on Aleron when Jaren had been injured, and Hayes held him at sword point. She’d blacked out just like today. There one minute, and then…not.

She hadn’t thought much about it until now. At the time, her life had been chaos, and her mind had simply tucked it away as nothing more than a memory. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t think it’s the first,” she finally said, “but it’s the first one that held me so tightly. It was terrifying, like nothing existed anymore.”

He sat quietly, listening as she described it, the sense of absolute nothingness, the terror of drowning, and the glass-covered cavern she’d caught a glimpse of.

He twisted onto his side to face her; his brows pinched together. “What were the others? The ones before today?”

“Memories, mostly. Of you. And my mother, I think.” She raised her hand, gliding it over the scar at her throat, and his eyes tracked the movement.