Gaelan's ears rang.
He had completely stopped listening to anything else Lysan had to say. He had stopped the moment he heard that name cross the other man's lips, spoken as casually as weather conditions, as though it were simply a piece of information being passed along and not something that had reached inside Gaelan's chest and closed a fist around everything it found there.
Tahla.
He could hear his own heartbeat thumping a dull but insistent thunder behind his eardrums that swallowed whatever Lysan was saying next.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He was aware, distantly, of the room around him. The fire, Rafa seated nearby holding their son in her lap, her hand still resting over her stomach. Lysan sitting across from him, travel-worn and watching him with an expression that had gone from i
