“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Asha shook her head. His hand stopped. He reached for her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face.
“Tell me.”
She told him everything. The truth about the day Kozu burned her and all the things that came after. All the lies she’d ever believed. All the dragons she’d ever killed. And for what? For a tyrant. For a father who never really loved her at all.
Torwin held her tighter.
After a long while, he turned his face into her wet, glistening hair. “Stay here tonight,” he said. “It’s quiet and peaceful and you’ll get a good rest. Better than you will back at camp.”
“Here?” She palmed the tears from her cheeks. “In your tent?”
“Just for tonight.” He stepped away to pull his shirt back on. The cool air rushed in, chilling her once more. Grabbing a bundle of dry clothes, he held them out to her. “I’ll sleep outside.”
Taking them, she said, “Torwin—”
“I prefer the stars.” He reached for his lute, ready to leave so she could change. “And besides, I don’t sleep much. Nightmares, remember?”
But before stepping out of the tent, he stopped and turned around.
“You don’t ever have to go back. Not if you don’t want to.”
She frowned at him.
He took a shaky step toward her. “We could leave,” he said. “We could leavetonight.”
“Torwin, where would we go?”
His mouth tipped up at the side. “Anywhere. To the edge of the world.”
That smile sent the tiniest of thrills rippling through her. Asha tamped it down.
Run away? No.
She understood wanting to run from Jarek, but he would never stop hunting them. And what of the rest? What of Dax and Safire? She couldn’t leave them to fight this war alone.
Asha stepped back. “I can’t.” She shook her head. “Everyone I love is in that camp.”
And a lying tyrant ruled over Firgaard.
“Everyone you love,” Torwin repeated.
He stood very still. Like he was waiting for something.
But Asha didn’t know what else he wanted.
The light in his eyes went out.
“Get some rest,” he said, turning to leave. Without glancing back at her, he slipped out of the tent and into the darkness beyond.
Asha stared at the tent flap until the shivering returned. It felt like the time she left him in the clearing. Something lay unfinished between them. Like they were a fraying tapestry in need of a weaver.
She changed out of her sopping-wet dress and dumped it outside in a heap. Torwin’s clothes, while far too big, were warm and dry.
Turning down the lantern, she climbed into the bedroll. She tossed and turned in the darkness, her thoughts full of thorns.
It was only when a quiet melody drifted in that she fell still. From outside the tent, Torwin plucked a familiar tune from the strings of his lute. The same tune he’d been humming ever since he’d stitched up her side. There was more of it than the last time, but it still wasn’t complete. Torwin kept falling into silence halfway through, only to pick it up again at the beginning.
