Jade Fern Grove chafa

there came a rain that rose brilliant and brutal, and swept the grove and those therein; it was between these rivulets of water that silvertongue managed to say, "crowfeather no longer speaks to me." he had been there, for a moment, she told akavir, after the children of germanicus had been called off by their dog of a father; he had been there, her prince of shadows. and he had not moved to help her at first. and then he had offered to take her home, and she had begged to be his wife, and faded to her wounds. when she woke it was not he who was there, but coyotes. and so much of this was not something she had told even wren, for her wife — her wife — must be spared the voidlike hollowing of true knowledge. "i wanted it to be a dream. maybe it was. maybe he was never there, but i broke that night. it is true that i love him. it is certain i always will.  but i would never have commanded you give up the graveyard of love in your own heart, akavir." unfairness; fairness; it did not matter. she knew the fire in his gaze, knew what it heralded; she wanted him against all that was right and agreeable and even warranted — "he left. and you left, because i wanted you to leave. and wren found me. she removed the leg, she brought me to riverclan. she stayed with me there," and the glassblue eyes showed an insistence that akavir understand there was no other man for her save the way he himself had tied his heartstrings with her own; "we healed together. we became one. and when the time came, we sought men far from riverclan for one purpose." tears, slanting along the corner of her jawline; "still, do not ever believe for a moment i would not have come to you first, even after all that went on in the desert. but you had moved forward, and i wanted you to do it. for you."