LYSANDER
I woke to voices I couldn't place and light that felt wrong against my eyelids. Someone had moved me. The ground beneath me had transformed into something softer. A bed, probably. The scent of healing herbs hung thick in the air, mixing with the copper tang I'd carried with me from that room.
My body hurt everywhere.
Not the sharp, immediate pain of fresh wounds, but the deep ache that came when those wounds had been partially healed and your flesh remembered the violation anyway. I forced my eyes open. The ceiling above me belonged to the infirmary. Wood beams crossed overhead in patterns I'd memorized during childhood.
A healer whose name escaped me noticed I was awake. She moved toward me with the grace of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
"Don't try to sit up yet," she said. "You've been out for six hours. Your body needs more time."
