Rowan
The first thing I noticed when Harper woke was the change in her breathing.
It shifted from the slow, heavy rhythm of deep sleep to something lighter. A little uneven. Pain still lingered in it.
Good. That meant she was conscious.
Roco had felt it before I did.. He lifted his head from the edge of the mattress and watched her carefully, his golden eyes fixed on her face as if he could force the world itself to keep beating in her chest.
She stirred slowly beneath the blankets and for a few seconds she didn’t open her eyes. Her body lay still, drifting somewhere between sleep and awareness.
I could smell the pain on her. And the silver.
Even dulled by Moira’s herbs and healers’ work, the scent lingered beneath the antiseptic and clean linen of the infirmary.
My ribs ached in p
