The fire had burned low, the flames reduced to glowing embers that cast long shadows across the study. The room was warm, but Kaelen felt cold, a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the weight of her words pressing down on him. The logs in the hearth had crumbled to ash, and the only light came from the dying glow and the pale moon outside the window.
Rosalind sat beside him on the window seat, her hand in his, her head on his shoulder. She had stopped weeping, but her breath was still uneven, her body still trembling with the aftershocks of her confession. She had told him everything: the regression, the past life, and the vision of his death that had brought her north. She had held nothing back, had laid herself bare before him, and now she waited.
And now he understood.
