Chapter 4

 In the morning, I was surprised to find myself the last one awake.  I rubbed bleary eyes and yawned as I climbed to my feet just in time to join in on singing up the sun.  Noble led.  My voice was still thick with sleep.  Noble and Wren battled it out to hold the last note while Quin and I bowed out.  Before the boys even fell silent, Quin had me by the arm and was dragging me away from camp and to a clear stream.  I was grateful for the opportunity to wash up somewhat.  Then Quin and I replenished our drinking water.  When we got back to camp, we found Wren stowing bedrolls on the cart while Noble sat cross-legged with a thick branch of wood on the ground in front of him.

“Noble, what are you doing?” Quin asked in that special exasperated tone of voice that seemed exclusively reserved for siblings.

Noble looked up at her but kept running his palms along the wood.  He met his sister’s gaze and continued singing softly, not stopping to answer her.  She made a noise of irritation and then crouched down next to him, leaning in to put her ear closer to his mouth.

I watched with mild curiosity as I opened a crate of provisions and took out some salted meat.

“You’re pulling the wood,” Quin said with mild confusion.  She looked at the branch and then at her brother’s longspear which lay in the dry grass beside him.  Quin frowned at the spear, the branch, then her brother again.  “Why do you need a new spear?”

Noble shook his head and then tilted his head toward me.  He looked from his sister to me, and then back at his sister.

“It’s for Seren?” Quin asked, her voice invoking the surprise I felt.  When Noble nodded in confirmation, she spoke again: “Why?”

I certainly wanted to know the answer as well.  I wasn’t a Dayguard.  Why did I need a spear?

Noble looked at his sister with a level of disdain that only missed being rude by the grace of his being her brother.  Quin made another irritated noise.

“Does she always ask him questions when he can’t answer?” Wren said in his usual bored tone of voice.

I managed not to jump, but he’d startled me.  He was a quiet as a cat when he wanted to be, and I hadn’t heard him sit down beside me.  He picked up a piece of dried meat from the crate in front of me and tore off a bite.

“I think she does it on purpose,” I said loudly enough for the siblings to be able to hear, “to try to break his concentration.”

Noble nodded and smirked at my comment, his eyes crinkling when he glanced at me.  Quin feigned offense.

Wren nodded, too.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he said in a more quiet tone of voice.  I looked at him, confused about what he meant.  He met my eyes and then gestured at Noble as he explained: “Arming you.  Training you.  I should have thought of it.”

I frowned.

“You’re already training me,” I said, though the statement didn’t exactly feel true.  He hadn’t taught me anything about Nightbringing yet.  Just breathing exercises.  But I felt like I made my point: why did I need to learn anything other than Nightbringing?

“There’s more to Nightbringing than the push,” Wren said, reciting his favorite mantra.

I was getting pretty tired of the refrain.

“So you keep saying,” I muttered around a mouthful of jerky.

“And there’s more to life than Nightbringing,” Wren went on, giving me a superior look.

His tone irked me.

“Yeah, there’s Dawncalling,” I said with faux enthusiasm.  “At all times of day, too.  So, if you teach me how to push, when would I need a spear?”

A flicker of a reaction crossed Wren’s face, but I didn’t catch its meaning.  As quick as a blink, his normal stoicism was back.

“Perhaps the boy just wishes to keep you alive until you can truly protect yourself,” Wren said, raising his voice enough to let Quin and Noble hear his remark.

I gaped at Wren.

“You think your push is better than my brother’s spear?” Quin challenged in a tone that was trying to be light and conversational but couldn’t completely conceal her contempt.  Her body language was aggressive, too, with her hands on her hips and her chin raised.

“Of course it is,” Wren said, lazily shifting his gaze from me to Quin.  “There’s no question.”

Quin rolled her eyes.

“You rely on my brother’s spear while you sleep,” Quin pointed out.

“No, I don’t,” Wren said with disdain.  “I rely on one of you waking me so I can handle things.”

Quin made an incredulous noise, and I eyed Wren with shock.

“But you’d rely on Seren’s spear, if she had one?” Quin asked in an assumptive tone.

“Of course not,” Wren said dismissively.  “I never said I thought arming her with a spear was a good idea.  I’m going to teach her how to properly defend herself until she can push.”

Quin and I both gaped at Wren this time, and I heard Noble turn a note of his song into an irritated growl.

I couldn’t believe how full of himself Wren was.  He was the most self-assured prig I’d ever had to deal with.

“I appreciate the spear, Noble,” I said in a strong, clear voice.  “And I do hope you teach me how to use it, so I can properly defend myself until my Nightbringing tutor manages to teach me something useful.”

Wren narrowed his eyes at me.

“It’s the student’s job to learn,” he snapped at me.  “Even the best teacher in the world can’t teach the unwilling and obstinate.”

“Oh?  And which one am I?” I barked back, glaring at him.  I shouldn’t have risen to the bait.  I didn’t think he’d truly been accusing me.  But I felt defensive anyway.

“Both,” he sneered.

I flinched, but then I raised my chin.

“Well, I suppose you’d know, being so familiar with the qualities yourself,” I hissed at him.

Wren’s left eye twitched, and I heard Quin snort.  I stared defiantly at Wren.

“I am familiar,” he said in a low rumble.  He held my gaze with angry fire behind his eyes.  “Familiar enough to know how those qualities will are a double-edged sword.  And not just you, but everyone, since we are all depending on you to complete this task.”

I closed my mouth and tried to wipe the look of shock off my face.  I could feel my heart pounding in response to our spat, and my stomach twisting at the reminder of my duty.  I needed to learn.  Was I doing something that was holding me back?  Or was Wren just being mean?

“Good teachers don’t sit around complaining about their students,” Quin said in an icy tone.  “They figure out how to help them.”

Wren narrowed his eyes as he shifted his gaze from me to Quin.

“Most teachers don’t have bothersome interlopers distracting their students,” Wren said snidely at Quin and her brother.

I felt my lips peel back from my teeth.  If Wren had something to say about me, that was one thing, but blaming Quin and Noble was another thing entirely.  A thing I wouldn’t tolerate.

“They’re not distracting me,” I said sharply.  Wren turned to look at me again and I glared at him.  “They’re here to help.  Like you.  So how about we stop bickering and get on with the mission.”

Something flickered in Wren’s expression again.  Then his face went smooth.

“After you,” he said with false politeness.

I bared my teeth at him and then tore another chunk of jerky from the piece in my hand.  I hadn’t been bickering, and I disliked the insinuation.  He’d started it.

Hadn’t he?

All I’d been doing was defending myself and my friends.  Hadn’t I?

I took a larger bite of jerky to buy myself some time to think.

The rest of the morning passed tensely, with Quin shooting Wren dirty looks and Wren studiously ignoring everyone else in the party.  Noble led silently from the front, his spear in one hand and the mule’s lead in the other.  The half-finished spear shaft lay across the top of the wagon, lashed down to keep it from falling out.

By lunch, I had a headache, and by sundown, I was beyond irritable.

Eating dinner helped more than eating lunch had, but I still felt agitated.  As the siblings prepared for bed, I paced the other side of camp, too tense to sit down.

Wren let me pace.  He brewed tea and then sat back and sipped his, watching me.  I could feel his gaze like a weight on my shoulders.

I don’t know how much time passed before he decided to intervene, but when he did, he caught me completely off-guard.  I turned around at the end of the rut I was wearing in the ground and he was standing in front of me instead of sitting by the fire.

“Do you want to skip the lesson for tonight?” he asked.

I felt like he was trying to be polite, but something about his tone felt displeased, which wrankled me further.  I didn’t care if he disapproved of me and my friends.

“I need to learn how to push,” I said sharply, barely able to keep my voice low.

I stomped over to my bedroll and dropped to a seated position.

“There’s more to Nightbringing than the push,” Wren said with clear exasperation.

I was sick of hearing him say it, especially after the argument that morning.

“That’s how Mother always described it,” I snapped, scowling up him.

He narrowed his steely eyes.

“To you,” he said dismissively.  He held my gaze for a moment and then turned away.  “Dawncallers can’t understand what it’s like.”

I gaped at him for a moment and then I let my vexation rise and speak.

“Maybe you just can’t explain it,” I shot back at him.

He spun and glared at me as the light from our campfire cast long, flickering shadows across his face.  He stood there silently seething for a handful of breaths.  I held his gaze with my chin lifted defiantly.

Moments passed, but neither of us flinched.  Finally, he opened his mouth to speak, his expression reflecting all the frustration and anger I felt.

“Did you mother explain what it feels like in the day, when you can still sense your power but you can’t touch it?” he asked me in a cold voice.  “Did she tell you how it feels like a weight is crushing your chest when the sun reaches its zenith?  Did she tell you how every dawn, you have your magic wrested from your grip, and how you can’t seize it again until dusk?”

I closed my mouth, unsure exactly when during his speech it had fallen open.  His words surprised me too much for me to keep hold of my animosity.

“No,” I said, truthfully answering his questions, though I wanted to form the word as a denial instead.  What he described sounded awful.  “She never said any of that.”

“Because you can’t understand what it’s like,” Wren said as if hammering a nail into a coffin.

The words felt like a slap across the face, and I wanted to protest, but I didn’t understand.

And I needed to.

“Then show me,” I whispered, dropping my chin.

Surprise sliced through Wren’s angry facade.

“What?” he said as if he hadn’t quite heard or understood me.

“Show me,” I repeated in a stronger tone of voice.  “Push it to me.  Teach me what it’s like.”

Wren stood perfectly still for a moment, his posture rigid.  The only movement in his form was the staggered rise and fall of his chest and the flicker of his eyes as his gaze darted across my face.

“Push the feeling to you,” he said slowly.  It didn’t sound like he was asking for confirmation of what I’d suggested.  I felt like he was considering the course of action for the first time.

“Is that not something you can push?” I asked tentatively.

Again, I didn’t know, but it seemed like he should be able to.  If I could pull emotions from people, surely Wren could push them into people.

“I don’t know,” he murmured as he took a step toward me.  His gaze traveled my face again, and then he awkwardly sat down to my left side, facing me.  “I’ve never tried it before.”

His sudden reticence unsettled me, and I still felt wrankled by what he’d said before and by my own apparent ignorance.

“Well, it seems like a better option that complaining about how I can’t understand,” I said with a mix of irritation and nerves.

He stared at me, his grey eyes locked on mine.  The weight of his gaze made me feel self-conscious.  I wasn’t sure why the idea—my presented idea—struck me as oddly intimate.  Maybe it was because it was Wren.  If I had to have a Nightbringer push into my mind, Wren is not the first one I would have chosen.  But he was the one I was stuck with, and my suggestion had worked to get him to cease his tirade.

He lifted his right hand and started to slowly reach for me.  Then he hesitated, his brow furrowing.

“Oh, come on then,” I said in a huff.

I grabbed his hand and pulled it to me, pressing his palm to my chest just above the neckline of my blouse.  His hand twitched, and then he lifted his gaze from our combined hands and met my gaze with wide eyes.  He looked younger for his loss of composure.

“Seren,” he said in a choked, hesitant voice, his tone promising some new lecture to follow my name.

“Oh, be quiet and push, Wren,” I said in exasperation.

I held his hand to my chest and reached for his neck with my other hand.  I slipped my fingers under his hair and tugged him nearer to me, assuming the position I used when pulling thoughts and emotions.  It seemed to me like it should work for the opposite, too.

I touched my forehead to his and then closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind.  After a moment, his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly and I felt the fingers of his left hand ghost across my cheek.  I held still as he gently cupped the back of my neck, mirroring the way I held him.

He took and slowly let out a deep breath.  Then he started softly chanting.  I didn’t recognize the rhythm, even though I’d heard Mother perform many chants over the years.

The crackling of the fire seemed loud in the sudden lapse of conversation, the pop of the wood so much more pronounced against the backdrop of Wren’s whispered chant.  And then I felt more than heard a thought that wasn’t mine.

—ridiculous.  I don’t know what I’m doing.

I let out a shaky breath and tightened my grip on Wren’s neck and hand.

Did she…?

Wren’s mental voice sounded different from his audible voice, but it was still perfectly recognizable.  I wasn’t sure how to quantify the difference.  His mental voice was more him, like a truer representation.

Seren…?

The thought was hesitant and awkward, and it came with a strange burst of swirling emotions: surprise, embarrassment, pride, and curiosity.

“Yes,” I whispered.  “I can hear you.”

Dusk and dawn, he swore without speaking.  Well.  Uh…

Wren’s more forefront thoughts went kaleidoscopic as another wave of emotion and mental noise washed over me: doubt, worry, excitement, anticipation, and some lingering confusion.

“Me, too,” I murmured in response to the cacophony.

Wren inhaled audibly, and his thoughts went abruptly silent as he ceased his chanting.

“This was a bad idea,” he said out loud.

He started pulling his hands away from me.

“Just show me, Wren,” I said, exasperated by what seemed like sudden cowardice on his part.  “If it’s so brightly important, just sho—”

Wren peeled his lips back as I spoke and then he resumed chanting, slightly louder than before.  And my thoughts went foreign and sideways again.

Pain.  And longing.

My voice died as my breath caught.  I tried to curl my hands into fists but I met with interference.  I tangled the fingers of one of my hands into Wren’s hair and intertwined the fingers of the other with his over my heart.  My breath came in shallow pants as I suddenly felt tight, restraining pressure constricting my chest, my head, my shoulders.  My limbs abruptly felt like lead and a dull ache throbbed behind my eyes.  I felt like I’d been bound with course ropes and then buried alive.  Or chained with weights and dropped to the bottom of a lake.  I couldn’t breathe.  My throat burned.  My eyes stung.  And I could sense sweet, cool, blessed freedom just beyond my reach.

But it wasn’t out of my reach.

It was just out of Wren’s.

I opened my eyes and leaned back slightly, breaking contact with Wren’s forehead.  His eyes fluttered open and confusion that seemed somehow disappointed crossed my mind.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, looking at him with sympathy.

Rage flashed across my thoughts like lightning, and then mental silence drew up between us as Wren stopped chanting.  He stood up and wrenched himself out of my grasp, peeling back his lips from his teeth.  His eyes were steel grey.

“Don’t pity me,” he spat.

“I don’t—” I started to protest.

“I told you you couldn’t understand,” he said coldly.  Then he turned around and strode off into the darkness. 

“Wren, wait!” I hissed, glancing at the campsite before I scrambled to my feet to follow him.  “Quin and Noble are sleeping.  We can’t just leave them unprotected.”

“They’ve got you, haven’t they?” Wren sneered without looking back.

“Not if I’m following you,” I said with exasperation.

“Then don’t follow me,” he said in a clipped tone.  “Problem solved.”

“Wren!” I called again, still trying to keep my voice down.  I glanced behind me at the campfire and our sleeping companions and then jogged to catch up with him.  I reached for his arm but he shook me off.  “Stop.  Please?”

He made an inarticulate noise that might have been a ‘no’ and kept tromping off through the trees.

“Dawn and dusk, Wren,” I muttered at him in irritation, “this is—”

He stopped so abruptly, I ran into his back.  He spun around and I had to lift my chin to look up at his face as I took a tiny step backward.

“That’s why,” he said, making me frown in confusion.  “You’re not a Nightbringer.  You will never be a Nightbringer.  You don’t understand.  You can’t.”

I let out a huff of breath as I put my hands on my hips and glared up at him.

“I do understand,” I snapped at him.  Then I frowned.  “Or, I think I do.”

He scoffed and started to turn away again.

“I’ve felt that before,” I said in irritation.  “What you pushed to me.  I’ve felt it before.  Or, something like it, at least.”

He looked at me again and narrowed his eyes.

“When?” he demanded.

“The night I healed Cade,” I said with agitation.  I spoke the words quietly, but I wasn’t sure why.  Maybe because I hadn’t told anyone else.

Wren flicked his gaze over my face but he didn’t immediately speak.  He stared at me for a moment and then he licked his lips.

“You felt it at night?” he asked with emphasis.

“Yes, when I was pulling Cade’s and the Prime’s wounds shut,” I confessed softly.

Wren frowned and glanced behind me.

“You haven’t told anyone that,” he said, very slightly inflecting that he was making a guess.

“Just you,” I confirmed.

“Why?” he asked, the short word sounding like a trap.

“I didn’t know what it meant,” I said with a self-conscious shrug.  “I still don’t.”

I watched him slowly wet his lips again.  Then he shifted his shoulders.  He looked thoughtful.  Or uncomfortable.

“That’s the only time you’ve felt it?” he asked, his tone just shy of accusation.

“Until you pushed it to me, yes,” I said honestly.

He pursed his lips and stared at me some more.  His gaze flicked between my eyes as he released the tension around his mouth.

“Why did you say ‘me, too’?” he asked in a less accusatory tone.

“What?” I said, confused by the question.

He gestured back toward the campfire but held my gaze.

“When…  When I was figuring out how to push the feeling to you, you said ‘me, too.’  Why?” he asked, his voice growing more quiet on the last word.

I blinked a couple times but didn’t look away from his eyes.  The question seemed strange to ask.

“Because of what you were feeling,” I said honestly.

We were both speaking more quietly, and I suddenly felt very aware of how close to one another we were standing.  We’d been physically close before—closer, even, just recently—but this seemed different somehow.  Maybe because we were so far from the light of the campfire.

“What was I feeling?” Wren asked in a low rasp, the words barely audible.

He leaned forward slightly, and I looked up at him in surprised confusion by his new tone and expression.  I felt like something was about to happen, but I had no idea what.  I could feel my pulse accelerating, adrenaline quickening my breath.

“Wren—” I whispered, unsure what to say.

And then he kissed me. 

His hands rose abruptly to cup my cheeks, his fingers ghosting along my jawline without a hint of pressure, but his lips made up for the lightness of his hands.  Wren pressed his mouth eagerly to mine, his lips moving with frenetic energy.  

Shocked and overwhelmed, I didn’t really react to the kiss at first, and before I could fully regain my senses and decide what to make of it, we were interrupted.

“Seren?” I heard Quin call tentatively.  A branch snapped under someone’s foot, and then my best friend gasped.  “Cloudless sky, Seren, I didn’t realize—is this what you two do all night?  No wonder you’re so tired in the morning.  Noble’s gonna flip.”

Wren and I had stepped away from one another during the speech, and I could feel my pulse pounding under my skin.  I knew my cheeks were flushed bright red.  At least the darkness would hopefully conceal most of my embarrassment.

What had Wren been thinking?

What had I been thinking?

If Quin hadn’t interrupted, what would I have done?

I couldn’t bring myself to look at either of them, so I stared at the toes of my boots as I tried to get my breathing under control.

No one said anything for several degrees.

“Well, I’m going back to bed,” Quin eventually declared in an overly dramatic way.

“M-me, too,” I blurted out, tripping over the words.  I glanced at Wren and found him staring at me intently.  I immediately looked away from him, feeling even more embarrassed.  Quin was looking at me, too, and I couldn’t meet either of they gazes.  “To bed, I mean.  I’m going to bed, too.”

“What else would that mean?” Quin muttered in confusion.

What else indeed.

I risked another glance at Wren and found him arching an eyebrow at Quin.  He seemed to feel my gaze and flicked his eyes to meet mine.  I looked away as soon as I realized his intention.

Facing Quin, I took a deep breath and ran my hands through my hair.  Then I put one foot in front of the other and forced myself back to the campsite, not waiting to see if Quin and Wren followed.

Noble was still fast asleep, his mouth hanging open.  I felt a pang of guilt again for wandering off into the trees while Noble and Quin had been sleeping.  It hadn’t been fair to them.

I heard movement behind me and hesitated before looking to see who it was.  Quin was closer, but Wren was coming back, too.  He was still looking at me.  I turned away and looked down at my bedroll.  Should I move it so it wasn’t so close to Wren’s?  We’d been sleeping within arm’s reach of each other for days.  Why had he suddenly decided to kiss me?

What did it mean?

I took a deep breath and busied myself with taking off my boots.  Then I slipped into my bedroll without changing its location.  I curled up on my side facing away from where Wren was rustling around at his bedroll.

I tried to focus on my breathing, but I could still feel my pulse in my flushed skin.  My cheeks and neck were almost painfully hot despite the chilled autumn air.

Why had he kissed me?  Why had he asked me about saying ‘me, too’?  Had he kissed me because of my answer?  Had I misinterpreted what he’d been feeling before I agreed with his emotions?

I tried to remember exactly what I’d felt from him in that moment, when he’d been trying to figure out how to push emotion.  He’d been nervous, I was sure.  He’d been sort of excited, too.  I’d thought the emotions were related to the push.  Had I misinterpreted them?  Had he been excited about something else?

I certainly didn’t want to ask.

I heard him sigh softly behind me.  The back of my neck felt tingly, exposed.  I felt pulled tight, and I half-expected him to touch me again.  Did I want him to?  I wasn’t sure.  I just hadn’t expected the kiss.  Not from Wren.  Wren didn’t even like me.  Or so I’d thought.  I’d never considered kissing Wren before.  But now it felt like the only thing I could think about.

Well, not the only thing, but it was a distracting thought.  My other item to ponder was what he’d shown me with the push.  Or, what he’d meant to show me with the push.  The tightness and feeling of being restrained that he’d sent to me.  Was that really how he and all other Nightbringers felt during the day?  Did Mother feel that?  Would Cascade?  And why had I felt it at night?

I didn’t feel it now.  But I wasn’t trying to pull.

I took a deep breath and decided I needed to experiment.

I opened my eyes and saw that Quin was situated again on her bedroll beside her brother.  With the crackling fire between us, I didn’t think I’d bother her or Noble if I kept my voice down.  Wren and I hadn’t woken them up with our conversations before.  I’d probably woken Quin up when I’d been calling after Wren.

I inhaled another slow breath and then sat up and put my back to the fire.  That meant I was facing Wren, but there wasn’t much to be done about that.  And I didn’t really mind if he saw what I was going to do, I told myself.  I just didn’t want to wake Quin and Noble.

Wren was sitting on his knees, his fisted hands resting on his thighs.  His eyes opened as I moved, and he tracked me without shifting his head.  I held his gaze for only a moment before I dropped mine and assumed a loose, cross-legged position facing just off to his left.  I squared my shoulders and then relaxed them.  I folded my hands loosely in my lap.  Then I started to softly sing under my breath.

I didn’t have a particular spell in mind, really.  I just wanted to find out if trying to pull sun at night was what caused the sensations I’d felt before.  But singing through the Sunrise song did nothing.  I didn’t feel anything.

Wren cleared his throat softly, and I opened my eyes.  He was watching me.  I still felt self-conscious, but I was curious why he’d decided to interrupt me.  I watched in mild alarm as he slid his belt knife out of its sheath and put the point of the blade against the skin on the back of his left forearm.⁷

“You need something to pull,” he murmured in a matter-of-fact tone.

Then he grimaced and drew the blade across his arm, leaving a red trail as he cut into his skin.

“Wren,” I gasped in shock, meeting his gaze with wide eyes.

I couldn’t believe he’d just cut himself.  The shock of it slowed me down in realizing why he’d done it.

“Are you going to leave me bleeding?” Wren asked after a moment in a deadpan tone that was ruined by the way he arched an eyebrow at me.

I blinked before I finally closed my gaping mouth to frown at him.

“You’re an idiot,” I hissed as I rose to my knees and met him between our bedrolls.

He snorted and extended his injured arm toward me.

I encircled his wrist with my fingers and hovered my other hand over the wound.  I glanced up at him one more time to frown at him in disapproval, but he just shrugged.  And I wasn’t truly upset with him.  Well, I was, but I also appreciated the gesture, even if I disagreed with his method.  Or, I thought I’d appreciate his help, once I could think straight again.

I felt goosebumps raise on Wren’s skin under my light touch, and I wondered again if he liked me.  It didn’t seem possible.  I was half tempted to try to pull his thoughts instead of his wound, but that was impolite.  And the touch required for it would give my intention away, anyway.  So, I took a deep breath and focused on Wren’s self-inflicted laceration.  I began softly singing the melody of restoration.

Wren shivered and exhaled a shaky breath.

I felt the magic of the song take effect, and as on the night of my brother’s testing, I felt a strange weightless pressure.  Since I wasn’t scared for my brother’s life this time, I tried to analyze the sensation more.  It felt a little like I was deep underwater.  It felt like I was buried.  I didn’t know how else to describe it.  I felt pressure everywhere.  But I could still somehow get to the sunlight.  I could use magic when I wasn’t supposed to be able to.  And that was the difference.

Wren couldn’t.

No one else could.

“You feel it,” Wren murmured, not asking.

I nodded.

“But you can still do it,” he said in a tense tone.  I wasn’t sure if he was impressed, jealous, irritated, or what.

I nodded again, still singing under my breath.  I could feel that his small wound was almost healed.

He pulled his arm out of my grip.

I popped my eyes open and looked at him with surprise.

“I’m almost done,” I whispered.

“It’s fine,” he said tersely, wiping the thin trail of blood off his arm with the corner of his shirt.

I watched him as he examined his arm in the firelight, bending it this way and that.

“Wren,” I started, but I wasn’t sure what to say.

He waited, watching me, but I couldn’t find any words.

“Sleep well, Seren,” he said with a note of finality in his tone.  He turned away from me and resumed his meditative pose.

I guess we weren’t having a training session after all.  Of course, I was the one who’d declared I was going to bed.  I should stay up and train, or at least keep Wren company, but how was I supposed to do that after he kissed me?  Wren was giving me the option of just going to sleep, and it was too tempting not to take.  Or at least pretend to take.

“Good night,” I replied quietly, feeling an odd mix of disappointment, confusion, and agitation.

I stared into the fire and ran the incident over again in my head.

Why did you say ‘me, too’?

There had been some miscommunication.  Right?

Because of what you were feeling.

But what, exactly, had he been feeling?  Had he been thinking about kissing me then?  Had I accidentally given him the impression that I wanted him to kiss me?

Did I want him to kiss me?

Did I want to kiss him?

I had no idea.

The questions and non-answers continued circling through my head until sleep finally claimed me.