Lanse snapped his eyes open.
The sterile white ceiling greeted him again—cold, blank, and lifeless. He blinked slowly, trying to process where he was. The infirmary. Still. Empty and silent.
He leaned back into the stiff pillow and shut his eyes.
A bitter taste clung to his tongue, like copper and ash. He coughed, the sound painful and dry, and collapsed back into the bed with a groan.
Dammit.
In the stillness, a scream began to echo louder in his ears. Tess's scream. The moment she was snapped in the jaws of that drake—her body dragged over the edge of the beam, entangled in vines.
The guilt hit again, sharp and suffocating.
He tried to tell himself she was unconscious when he left her—barely aware. But the memory of her inner scream felt too real. It crushed his chest like a vice. The same guilt that made him go back to retrieve her severed hand from the drake... only worse.
