CHAPTER 9When Tylen didn’t come to me the next night, I attempted not to dwell on it. After all, he risked much by seeing me when he had. I did not know his schedule nor what responsibilities had been demanded of him. Hoping to see him a third night in a row was pure selfishness on my part.
But I slept poorly, taunted by dreams of that device of his destroying the lock on my cage once and for all, all of them interlaced with images that were more memory than fantasy, trees instead of bars, seas instead of stone, others of my kind greeting me with kindness rather than strangers barely noticing me at all. I moved between rest that was too deep and scant sleep I startled from when the slightest sound permeated my consciousness. Neither gave me solace.
I went through my morning ablutions by
