The three Exiles were in separate tents.
Fen took me to the first one, a man named Darro, mid-forties, fully marked, the tattoos covering both arms and most of his throat. He'd been in the Old Growth for nine years, which meant he'd survived things most people didn't, which meant whatever was happening to him right now was significant enough to override nine years of hardened instinct.
He was asleep. Deeply, unnaturally asleep, the kind where the body is too still and the breathing is too even, like a machine approximating sleep rather than the real thing. His face was doing something that made my stomach turn. He looked peaceful. Not the peace of exhaustion. The peace of someone getting exactly what they wanted.
"How do you know it's the same dream," I said quietly.
"Because I woke Se
