When I woke slow and groggy the second time, the chamber's heavy air pressed thick against my skin, carrying faint traces of healing salves—sharp mint and bitter willow bark—and the distant clamour of palace life echoing beyond the thick stone walls—guards' boots clomping marble halls, servants' murmurs like bees in a hive.
My one good eye fluttered open to hazy focus, the swollen black orb still a useless slit of throbbing agony, vision in the other blurred like fogged glass smeared by relentless tears, no mercy yet from the healers' endless herbs and poultices.
Afternoon light slanted golden through tall arched windows draped in deep indigo velvet embroidered with silver griffins, casting long, wavering shadows across the carved oak bedposts that snarled like frozen beasts.
