Page 25 of Saved
“Brianne will show you your chambers,” he says, voice careful. “You will have time to rest. To consider. The formal rite is not until night’s rise.”
“Night’s rise?” I echo.
He nods toward the sky.
The clouds above are darkening at the edges, those pale green channels of light brightening like veins pulsing in a giant heart.
“When the sky turns fully,” he says. “You will know.”
There’s a weight to his words.
Not pressure, exactly.
More like promise.
Chapter 4
Alina
The Barrow, Nightfall
I nod slowly.
“Okay,” I say. “Mating rites later. Processing now. Got it.”
Brianne steps forward, her hands clasped.
“Before anything else,” she says, “you must be given proper fyrann.”
“Fry… what?”
“Fy-rann,” she repeats patiently. “It is a brewed drink from roasted mountain beans and root-bark. It settles the stomach, clears the mind, and restores strength after travel. My Lord cannot function without it.”
Dagan makes a low, rumbling sound that might be a warning or might be embarrassment.
“I function,” he mutters.
Brianne arches a brow.
“With fewer broken things when you’ve had your fyrann,” she counters.
Okay, I like her.
“Fyrran sounds like coffee, so I am sold,” I say. “Lead the way.”
Inside the fortress, the air shifts again.
The stone walls bleed the chill right out of the air, but they’re not cold.
They feel insulated. Safe.
The corridors are lit with soft, moss-green globes nestled in alcoves, and here and there I glimpse open archways leading to rooms where vines crawl decoratively along carved stone.
It’s like someone mashed up a castle, a monastery, and a very high-end eco-lodge.
Brianne guides me to a set of double doors marked with a sigil carved into the lintel—three interlocking circles surrounded by stylized roots.
“Your chambers,” she says, pushing the doors open.
