Wren wasn't even sure how long it had been. How long she'd been laying here.
At some point, she'd moved to her den. At some point, she was left alone. At some point, she'd stopped crying. At some point, she'd consumed as many poppy seeds as she could stomach without puking and the pain had faded into a warm numbness that she gladly succumbed to with open arms. At some point, she'd fallen asleep; she'd slept and slept and slept, time hardly even so much as a blurry swath of color in the delirious loop she seemed to be stuck in.
She hadn't spoken to anyone. She hadn't moved, for what felt like centuries but was closer to twenty-four hours. She hadn't eaten.
And now, sleep escapes her, as the last of the seeds Eshe had supplied her with are clutched in calloused pawpad and the pain begins to trickle back into the forefront of her mind. She tries to run her tongue over her lips, and that too is dry.
The memory of what had transpired yesterday was cracked, cluttered; where was Mae? Where was Moss's newborn? Did Akavir and Arric know? Where was the boy, the one she'd; no, no. Where was—
Silvertongue.
When Wren reaches out as if she may have been beside her, there is nothing except for cold air and the caked earth of the denfloor. She wished; oh, she wished for a lot of things.
She wished she wasn't alone right now.
She raises the pawful of poppies to her mouth, cradles herself with her legs tucked up under her torso, and she stares out at the trees until they morph into blue-black labyrinths of branches and the call of a dull ache forces her head underwater once more.