Noctisardor Bypass i fell into my fear, and took a lie for a truth

birdsong lagoon. "that is a colorful name. i enjoy it," mahler told laurel softly. he wanted to comment more upon the title, but the small, appropriate distance between them rippled with another shift. this time laurel spoke of her father, and mahler's mouth grew quietly taught. an impossible situation for two children, guilt setting hands around his throat next with the inner thought, and you put all five of your own into one.
good humour paling beneath the intersection of her words and his mind. ciri was gone.
why had not he not yet gone to moonspear?
larksong, larksong. a hollow of birds set against nova peak, where phaedra had first been happy, and then had grown swiftly away from him.
he and his inattentiveness.
"northvest of here, tovard the ocean, there is a mountain called nova. you vill know it, for it stands alone upon the plain. if you come onto it from the direction of here, of rivenvood, you vill come to the grotto first." he was pleased that he had remembered so well, but of course he had loved nova. and he had loved sagtannet, that wild sprawling place. 
suddenly curious, suddenly knowing, and now wondering if laurel meant to leave the bypass for her father's lands, he felt a sense of perhaps patriarchal protectiveness stirring in him. she had not come here alone; she should not be alone when she went so far. "the pack who lives upon the coast, rusalka, keep clear of them, if you intend to go. before ve came here, i struck a quick truce between ve and them. but conflict vas coming svift between us. they vill know you as sagtannet. they are just beyond the mountain, and patrol up as far as the tangled wood."
informative, pleasant; could laurel see the strain in his lavender gaze? he watched her face and then looked upon birdsong lagoon again.