I wake up like my body is still falling.
Not the soft kind of waking—no stretch, no calm, no normal. Just a sharp inhale that drags pain through my skull and makes my stomach flip like I’m back in that van, braced against metal, trying to bite through fear and not puke from the cold burn of brinks.
My eyes crack open and the room swims.
Ceiling first—high, familiar, carved beams that used to feel like safety when I was twelve and convinced the Ashcroft mansion was the only place in Aurelith that couldn’t be touched. There’s a chandelier above me, dimmed low, throwing warm gold across stone walls and dark wood.
East wing.
My room.
The one that faces the forest.
That’s how I know I’m alive. Because my lungs fill with cedar and fireplace smoke and the faint clean bite of whatever herbs
