A crack in the silence—spreading wider and wider as the stag’s fathomless eyes stayed steady on her. A glimmer of a world long since destroyed—a kingdom in ruins. The stag shouldn’t be here—not so deep into Adarlan or so far from home. How had he survived the hunters who had been set loose nine years ago, when the king had ordered all the sacred white stags of Terrasen butchered? And yet he was here, glowing like a beacon in the moonlight. He was here. And so was she. She felt the warmth of the tears before she realized she was crying.
