Sleep was not a refuge; it was a battleground. That night, the memories did not come as fragmented nightmares, but as a total, sensory immersion. The curse that stole her voice did nothing to guard her mind. It flung open the gates and let the past flood in, drowning her in the vivid, technicolor horror of that final night.
In her narrow, scratch-wool cot in the servants' dormitory, Nova was violently yanked from the present. The stone walls of Frostholm melted into the warmer, moonstone-inlaid pillars of her childhood home. The scent of straw and lye soap was replaced by the acrid tang of smoke, the metallic scent of blood, and underneath it all, the pervasive, chilling perfume of winter roses and ozone.
