The room was nicer than anything Mara had slept in for a long time.
Stone walls hung with thick tapestries that kept the draught out. A proper bed with a frame and a mattress that didn't dip in the middle. Two candles on the side table, already lit when Dara showed her in, a washbasin in the corner with a clean cloth folded over the edge.
A window with a latch that actually worked.
She lay on her back in the dark and stared at the ceiling and could not sleep.
She had tried. She had closed her eyes and arranged herself carefully and focused on her breathing the way her mother had taught her when she was small — in through the nose, slow, out through the mouth, slower. She had done this for what felt like a very long time and had not slept at all.
Britta was in the room next door. She
