“You’ve been sleeping better the last night or two, haven’t you?” Bren asks. He sits across the low table from me in our inn room, meticulously polishing his dagger.
“I have,” I agree, cradling my morning tea in my hands. My first nights in Lirelei were punctuated by nightmares, and Bren is, unsurprisingly, a light sleeper. He woke with me every time. “I’m not sure how long it will last.”
He nods. “Those sorts of things don’t ever really go away, but they ease up.”
He’s right. I’ve learned not to let my memories drag me down, to steady myself when they come for me in my dreams. Sometimes, they’re quieter and I can face them, or simply push them away, and sometimes they hit me as hard as the moment I first lived through them. I’ve begun to accept that they will always be a part of me, on
