The first thing to return was the smell.
Salt, sharp and clean, cutting through the fog in her mind. Then came the scent of beeswax, warm and sweet, and beneath it, the bitter, medicinal tang of poultices.
Arin's eyelids fluttered open. They felt heavy, as if weighted with stones. The world swam into view, a blur of flickering gold and deep shadow. A candlelit room. The ceiling was low, with dark wooden beams. The walls were paneled in the same dark wood. She was lying in a bed—a real bed, with linens so fine they felt like water against her skin and a velvet coverlet the color of a midnight sky.
A cage. No matter how gilded.
