Things are hazy.
Sound reaches me in fragments, some near, some far away, all of it muffled as though I am submerged beneath something heavy and deep.
I cannot open my eyes.
Our eyes.
I am still inside Astraea, I realise dimly.
My mind feels strange here while she is unconscious. Weightless. Unmoored. Suspended somewhere just beneath the surface of her, waiting for her to return fully to herself.
Weight slowly begins to seep back into us, limbs heavy, breathing shallow.
Because then comes the pain.
Deep, and all too familiar.
Astraea is wounded.
Every breath sends a sharp, piercing ache down the side of our ribs, and one leg feels wrong. Distant and numb in places. Burning in others.
What had happened?
The question pulls memory back to me in broken flashes.
The four enormous r
