Xander

“He’s here,” Vedran says in my room as he helps me prepare for kafi.

I meet his pink eyes in the window's reflection. “How did you know?”

Vedran taps one of my shoulders lightly. “Every time someone mentions their arrival, you tighten. Why do you think you have woken so sore in the mornings?”

The war. Father’s behavior. This illness I seem to be coming down with—ever since the nausea passed, it has settled into a dull throb of a headache but nothing worse. Perhaps, maybe, a bit of concern about Finn’s imminent arrival.

My mark throbs. I reach for the pot of salve Miralyn gave me last week,...