Lost Creek Hollow we'll be counting stars

she shut her eyes tightly, but it was too late, far too late; she turned into him, and though she refused to cry aloud, her shoulders shook and her inhales were small sobs of their own. "crowfeather does not love me. oh, he does, so deeply! and i him, but not in a way i — yet i was stupid. i thought i —" and in akavir's embrace she realized how in all of her interludes, silvertongue had only ever loved crowfeather, and that in lying with him it had connected the deepest part of her need to what she had been robbed of by ramesses and by satsu. it had been the taste of healing, and out of it had come her deepest shame, for as the children she bore lay against her side, silvertongue could only remember that had tried to end them. "i cannot be his love. i cannot be their mother. what am i then, akavir?" his chest would be wet with all her tears by the time they parted.