Rhydian's POV
Consciousness comes back slowly and strangely, fragments of memory arriving out of order, smoke and silver, and Wren's voice tearing itself raw, shouting my name into a chaos I couldn't fully see. I wake in the infirmary to Corwin's face hovering over me, and my first coherent thought, before pain or gratitude or anything else, is her.
"She's fine," Corwin says, reading the question before I can force it out of a throat that still feels raw from whatever happened in that courtyard. "Exhausted. Shaken. Sitting in the chair by your bed since we brought you in, refusing to leave despite my best efforts to make her rest properly."
I turn my head, and there she is, curled into the chair beside the bed, asleep at last, dark circles under her eyes and dried blood still crusted al
