Mirellie
Consciousness returned to me in slow, uneven waves. And pain greeted me first. It settled behind my eyes, throbbed through my skull, and spread into every aching muscle in my body. Even the simple act of taking a breath made me wince. My mouth felt unbearably bitter and dry, and my limbs were so heavy they might as well have belonged to someone else.
But beneath all of that, beneath the pain and exhaustion, relief bloomed quietly inside my chest. A smile tugged at my lips before I even realized it.
Cassian had found me.
The thought came so naturally that I didn’t question it.
He’d actually found me. For so long, I’d wondered if we’d ever see each other again. Every day I’d worried about him finding me, worried that the distance between us would become permanent. Yet somehow,
