(Isla)
I was in the shack.
Not remembering it. In it. The dirt floor under me and the chain on my ankle and the dark pressing in through the gaps in the walls and Torvin's boots on the path outside getting closer and I couldn't move, couldn't pull the ring from the floor no matter how hard I tried, and the door was opening and it wasn't Torvin on the other side it was Rodan with his hands behind his back and that particular expression and I knew what came next I had always known what came next and I couldn't.
I came up out of it fast.
Sitting upright in the bed with my hands in front of me and my heart going at a pace that made thinking difficult and the room around me taking several seconds to become real. The window. The eastern forest dark beyond the glass. The fire burned down to a
