Sable's POV
I didn't answer Ivy. I couldn't, not without saying something I wasn't ready to say out loud, so I got up and walked off toward my tent instead, leaving her sitting on that log with the parchment still in her hand.
She didn't follow. I was grateful for that, at least.
I lay awake most of the night, staring at the same canvas ceiling I'd stared at every night since arriving, trying to convince myself the ache under my collarbone had a simple explanation. Brands healed strangely sometimes. Skin pulled tight as it scarred over. That was probably all this was.
It didn't feel like that, though. It felt like something reaching, or maybe something being reached for, and I hated how much that thought scared me more than the frost had that morning.
By the time the sun came up, I ha
