CHAPTER FORTY THREE

“Son of a troll’s dog!”

At least she thought she committed herself to the burning flames. She thought she heard that too. Certainly she must have heard it because she didn’t say it. How could she with her head lolling about on her neck and her throat parched as the Sahara desert?

“Sinarr!”

“What the fang-toothed hell is going on here?”

His voice. It was his voice. And not just his voice. He was here, striding through the crowd, firelight burning into the growth of stubble on his jaw, the dusty leather boots and worn wristbands, the dark tan of his face so the blue eyes stood out like sentinels, beneath his wind-whipped hair. Smears of sweat slicked the lines on his forehead. These treacherous engravings she had come to know so well, she traced them on her heart, measured them on her soul, took the inventory of even as she’d gone to hell over them on that island. It took her till now to realize it, these few weeks that had changed her world.

“Well?”