Book 4: Needed

Xandra

“I approach Tarrin from the southwest”, Vedran says the next day. “With Beta Elian in tow.”

I nearly drop my quill. Sanja, the weaver for whom I’m penning a letter to her family still in Tansy Beach, looks at me questioningly. Finn braces around the log he’s hauling a few feet away.

“Our friends are arriving,” I say, shocked by the sheer intensity of relief crashing through my body. This is the longest I have been away from Vedran since he came to the castle. I have less to hide than I ever did, and his daily spells are no longer necessary, but the lack of his quiet presence by my side has left a hole nothing else quite fills.

“Go,” Sanja says warmly.

Finn smiles, drags the log into place, and loops his arm through mine with a new ease. “Get ready for a whole lot of complaining.”

“I will be glad to hear it,” I say

I try twice to mind-link a warning to Lieutenant Sime, the soldier leading the southeastern scouts, befor