Hushed Willows No one dies from love

Reina was greeted with a tired smile and a faint, breathless giggle at her words. A muskrat! Reverie didn't think she looked much like one — hadn't Reina called her something else before? A toad, perhaps. She couldn't quite recall.

In the next instant her attention was swept away by the Middleman's suggestion of a break, the flash of disapproval behind her eyes as she said it. Reverie fell quiet, taken by the urge to defend her husband. But she could not find the words. She hadn't wanted this. She hadn't wanted their pack, their guests, to look at him and see an absent husband, an absent leader, soon to be an absent father. Because of her. If only she hadn't exhausted him with her illness, the way she'd exhausted Lestan...

But she'd been silent too long. Reverie let out a breath and stepped back from her digging. It gives me something to do, She tried to be lighthearted, but it came out flat and wavering. She burst into tears. I'm sorry, I - um, hormones. At least she had a convenient excuse.