The Age of the Dragon 4: On Silver Wings

Chapter 8 Bonus

"They've left," Thorn advised Murtagh. "Flying north, towards the elves."

"They can communicate messages through magic; why would they...?" Murtagh paused, setting down his food. "Unless she's meant to provide the elves with aid?"

"It makes sense on some level," Thorn's frustrated roar echoed through the city. "It would force us to divide our attention between two locations."

"There is that," Murtagh resumed eating, silently relieved she was going as far from him as possible.

He'd begun to feel... uneasy... anytime she was involved. The trauma of seemingly witnessing her death, something that spread through all the spies in the Varden rapidly, and then her miraculous return... He had a lot of complicated feelings about that. Add to that the ghostly visage that had previously visited him and her last words...

"One cannot always trust the visions of spirits..."

He frowned. "What did it mean?"

"Perhaps a spirit had brought her message to you? But it behaved so lifelike... I don't think I have any insight you haven't already considered," Thorn said. "You should get some rest. I will keep watch."

"As if this night will be any less upsetting..."

Since discovering that Fallyn was alive and the last few weeks of chasing her all over the countryside, he had noticed how they had fallen into their old habits of bantering. The coy teasing, lilting laughter in thunderous storms... It clearly was a game to her, one she had probably been playing from the moment they'd met.

He growled, chasing away thoughts of her that bordered on the scandalous.

"Wake me if something happens," he instructed Thorn, going to his sleeping quarters. "And wake me if she infiltrates my thoughts again."

"Rest, little one," Thorn said gently. "I am near."