The following morning dawned surprisingly bright for an autumn day. Gone were the sickly slate blurs of the previous day, replaced with wisps of cotton-white clouds that dotted the cornflower blue sky. Seraphina opened her eyes and blinked herself awake, squinting through the crust that had formed in the corner of her eyes. With some effort and far less pain than before, she managed to elbow herself until she was sitting upright in the bed.
She was surprised how well she had slept last night despite being in a strange bed in a foreign land and palace, and also at how early it was. Seraphina wouldn’t call herself a late-sleeper, but the sun had barely crested over the line of trees in the distance. Before she could think too long about why she had woken up so early, her stomach let out a
