They had been on the road for more than a week and Calista still woke up overwhelmed with fear. Even though their tent was nothing like her room in Lazulis Castle, even though she was no longer lying in a comfortable but cold bed and even though there was no maid to wake her, she dreamt of loss and death and her uncle.

But when she startled awake before dawn, she felt a warmth at her back. When she trembled in the dark, she felt Zael's arms around her and heard his regular, wonderfully comforting breathing. Then she would take a deep breath, clasp his warm hands in her cold ones and remember that she would never again wake up alone in Lazulis Castle.