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And there could be others.

He put voice to the thought that I had struggled to avoid. Now I had to face it.

Could there be others? Others like me? As confused and lost and alone as I was? Or perhaps they had answers and a better understanding of what was happening to me. Perhaps they could help me feel not so confused, not so lost, not so alone. Could I find them? I glanced at the Crags again, hope stirring in my heart.

“I will find this dragon,” Stig added with such vehemence, such conviction that I knew...

He would never stop.

He would never let it go. Never give up the idea of the dragon, of hunting it—even if he didn’t realize that the thing he wanted to destroy, the thing he was hunting... wasme.

Perhaps there was my answer.

Perhaps he needed to know.

Perhaps then we could put our heads together and come up with a solution.

Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

He was my oldest friend. So often my refuge, the person I could go to, the person to comfort me and help me see things plainly.

I took a great, fortifying breath. “What if you knew that the dragon meant no harm?”

His gaze turned amused. “What do you know of a dragon’s intentions, Tamsyn?” He chuckled lightly, as though I had just suggested the most preposterous thing. As though I was a stupid, foolish girl who still believed in fairy tales. “When has a dragon ever not intended harm?”

A question I could not answer. Unless I did.

Unless I did answer him.

Unless I answered him honestly, sincerely...

It was time. Time to talk to him as one friend to another. As onefaithfulfriend to another.

If I could not trust Stig, then whom could I trust?

I had known him all my life. He was the person who had offered to leave everything behind, all of his responsibilities, his rank, his position, for me. To run away with me, to start over someplace else.

I was so very tired. So tired of keeping this to myself, locked away like a dirty secret.

Tired of treading lightly around my husband, keeping him at arm’s length when he wanted a wife, when he wanted me in the truest sense, as a man wants a woman. WhenIwanted him. When one more night in his bed would be my breaking point, the final push over the edge.

This secret, this thing pressing down like bricks on my chest, was a crushing burden, and I needed to lift it away, to share it with someone else. With a friend.

I moistened my lips, a sudden chill pebbling my skin that had nothing to do with the winter wind surrounding us. It had everything to do with what I was about to do. What I was about to say.

“Stig, I have something to tell you.” I took several more sips of air, hoping that would steady my nerves.

Stig looked at me expectantly, patiently waiting, and gave me a nod of encouragement, as though he sensed I needed it.

“I am not the same person I was when I left the City.”

His face went a little dark, as though he did not like that—did not like the reminder that I had left the City or the reminder that I had changed since then.

He shook his head grimly. “I should never have let you go. Never let you marry him. I failed—”

“No. It’s not that. I don’t think leaving the City had anything to do with me changing...”

At least I didn’t think so. But what did I know? All I knew was that there was a great deal I didn’t know.