While he summoned a string of liquid, Tabi recapped their encounter with Nyla and their plan to spend the night by the cave, and once more, Lory wondered if ignoring Khayrivven’s warning was such a smart idea, no matter that Aiden had disregarded it when she’d told them about it.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Thal announced eventually, catching the bag of berries tumbling from Lory’s blanket as she spread it out over her tired legs. “What’s that?” He eyed the bundle with suspicion.
“Berries.” Lory leaned her head against the rock behind her. “Don’t eat them. Khayrivven said they weren’t in there to help me.”
Thal paused the bag halfway to his mouth, eyeing her sideways. “What are they for, then? Are they poisonous?”
Aiden was sitting down next to her, providing his massive shoulder as a pillow and a glance and invitation for Lory to make herself comfortable. “I wouldn’t put it past them to rig the trials. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“What do you mean?” Lory leaned sideways, cheek resting on Aiden’s shoulder right where his insignia should have been, but his uniform didn’t show even a trace of a square—blue or otherwise.
With a glance at Tabi and Thal, Lory confirmed that the two ashlings were wearing their ranks like any other day.
“Just saying, the Triad apparently is ambivalent toward your survival. It’s almost like they are leaving it up to fate rather than killing you themselves. Almost like your survival or death might prove something.”
“You’re speaking in riddles, Frost,” Tabi mumbled, already curled up on her side, head resting on Lory’s thigh. “Shut up. I need to sleep.”
Lory didn’t ask Aiden what he meant this time. Khayrivven’s hints and the prophecy came back to her, keeping her mind busy, and when she drifted off, this time, it was the Flame-born captain’s voice she woke up to.
“Didn’t I say don’t close your eyes?”
Cool sunlight filtered through ceiling-high windows, one of them opening toward a large balcony overgrown with lush, wild greenery.
Lory inhaled a deep breath, the humid air a balm to her lungs.
She was sitting at a carved, round table at the center of a white, marble-tiled room, her cream cotton clothes soft andcomfortable like in that one dream when he’d shown her his torch branding. In front of her, a steaming cup of tea was waiting alongside three plates with one piece of fruit-topped cake each, and above it, Khayrivven’s storm-gray eyes were studying her with a hint of disapproval.
“This is a dream.” Lory held up her hand before her face, watching the light trickle over it like a slow waterfall.
Khayrivven’s lips twitched in and out of a half-grin. “Obviously. And you being here means you’ve disregarded all my warnings. The mountains are dangerous enough for the waking.”
With a frown, Lory picked up the gilded fork beside the plate closest to her and cut into one of the cakes. “I’m not alone. Aiden and Tabi found me. Thal’s here, too. I have a sword now, too, though the brooch probably saved me—” She paused as Khayrivven met her gaze across the table. “Thank you for that.”
With an incline of his head, he waited for her to continue, but breathing had become hard at the way he was looking at her, hope and anguish mingled in those usually so cold eyes. Not a single one of the words she’d been hoping to speak came out—no demands of what he’d meant bydangerousor why he hadn’t told her Aiden would be there. And certainly not that small voice screaming at her to tell him how she felt.
Khayrivven’s gaze dropped to the cake. “Criu specialties,” he commented, gesturing at each of the cakes. “Plum, orange-cream, and berries.”
Lory eyed the bite of cake on her fork—berries.
“Speaking of berries,” he continued. “The ones in your bag aren’t deadly. They merely slow down your body—call it a sort of muscle relaxant that will prevent you from outrunning your enemies.”
Lory set down her fork, earning a grin from Khayrivven. Guardians, the way the light kissed his face… She wanted to reach across the table and brush those silken strands back, wanted to let her fingers linger on his skin, to trace his cheekbone, his jaw, the supple curve of his mouth.
“Not these berries.” He pointed at the cake, taking the fork she’d abandoned and letting the piece of cake disappear in his mouth. “These are Criu berries, sweet and a hint tart.” He swallowed, throat bobbing and eyes closing for a heartbeat, thick lashes brushing the top of his cheeks, and Lory’s heart ached from the perfection of the image. Even now, when she should have been pestering him for answers, his beauty stole her voice.
“It’s the dream,” he said as if reading from her mind. “I’m not half as pretty in real life.” A self-deprecating chuckle followed his words, eyes flickering open. But he was wrong. Not that Lory would admit that out loud.
“Are you reading my mind?” Not that it was the worst of her problems if he could.
“Only in dreams—since a dream is happening in your head, I’m in there already, anyway.” A shrug, and he took another bite of cake, humming as he savored its taste before swallowing.
Great. So, she had no secrets in her dreams—not when Khayrivven was around. Again, a hundred things she couldsay ran through her mind, but she chose the one she was most afraid of: “Won’t they consider your visiting my dreamsinterfering? They’ll make you kill me.”
Khayrivven’s eyes iced over, but his hand reached across the table, capturing hers in a gentle grasp. “They won’t know if I’ve nodded off just for a moment. That’s why you need to wake up, Lory, so I don’t need to worry a wild animal will tear you apart in your sleep, or you’ll be overrun by Criu rebels and tortured for information, or that one of your fellow students will try to end you.”
Lory’s fingers twined with his on their own accord. “The faith you have in me, Khayrivven Falcrest, is only outmatched by the faith you have in the gods.” The smug grin she gave him dispersed as serious eyes met hers, full of hope and pain, of unspoken sorrow and a burden that might one day break him.
“You have no idea of the faith I have in you, Lory, and I’ve long given up on the gods.” His voice started to fade away, the silvery light disrupted by bursts of gold. “Wake up, Lory.”
