I rinse a bowl. “Just tired.”
“Hmm.” She hums it like a song note. “Not a lie. But not the whole truth either.”
I sigh. Of course she sees through me.
I look out the window. The sky is deep indigo, stars burning through the dusk like pinpricks in fabric.
“Something I overheard today,” I murmur. “About the wards and the Shadeheart. I can’t stop thinking about it. It feels like . . . ” I trail off, unsure of the shape of what I’m trying to name.
Lyra waits.
So I tell her.
Not every word Aiel said—but thefeelingof it. The cracks in the wards and the organized raids. That sense that something ancient has started moving again.
My friend listens, her hands moving through the water like she’s grounding herself in the work.
When I finish, she sets her dish down and looks at me.
“If that’s true,” she says, “then we’re not as far from the fight as we thought.”
I nod. “I’ve always thought this village was its own world. That nothing out there could really touch us. But tonight . . . ”
I run my fingers through the water, watching it swirl.
“ . . . tonight it felt like the edges are starting to fray.”
“We always joked about what we’d do if the world started falling apart,” she says, softer. “Ride west. Fake our deaths. Open a bakery.”
A smile tugs at her mouth, but it fades almost as quickly.
“But if it’s real . . . ” she meets my eyes, green and fierce. “Then I want to know how to fight. To protect the people I love.”
A beat.
“I wantyouto know how, too.”
The silence between us is heavy with quiet understanding—the kind that exists between two people who have been friends for a very long time.
Then Lyra exhales. “Well, at least Revan’s ready.”
I blink. “What?”
She grabs a clean plate, handing it to me with a smirk. “Did you see him tonight? Already planning his earth-battlements, probably drawing battle maps in his sleep.”
I laugh under my breath. “He said he was going to grow trees that touch the clouds.”
“Gods help us if he figures out how,” she mutters. “He’ll crown himself King of the Blackberry Army and start taxing everyone in acorns.”
I laugh—reallylaugh—and Lyra grins, victorious.
And just like that, the ache in my chest eases. Maybe the worldisfraying.
But I have Lyra.
DREAMS AND SHADOWS
TWO
