Syrina woke, holding Triglav. His body was no longer warm. The corpse of the assistant who’d just been in the wrong place that day slumped in the corner she’d dropped him in. She could make out the shape of the N’talisan-Kalis lying hogtied to the leg of the heavy table. Syrina didn’t remember doing that, nor straightening her own nose, which seemed to have healed in place. The woman was awake, and she looked at Syrina with calm blue eyes.
Syrina realized her own face was wet with tears. She’d been crying while she slept, and she was ashamed. Even during the harshest tests of her training, she couldn’t remember more than a handful of times she’d cried, and that was different anyway. Tears of a child in physical pain. This was… emotional, and she did her best to swallow her tears.
But the
