11
The excruciating pain in her chest made Pelina snap her eyes open. She gasped for air and lifted her hand to defend against an unseen foe, but instead of some brute on the verge of untold offenses, she stared at a painted ceiling high above, and her arm rested on soft covers as she breathed out her relief. The room itself looked like the teachers’ bedrooms in the High Towers, furnished simply but comfortably, and her heart skipped a beat, responding to surging hope. She’d made it back home.
“Lie still,” said a man. He sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it in her memory. “You’ve been wounded and lost a lot of blood.”
Despite the recommendation, she moved her head. “Where… where am I?”
A man in mage’s robes stood nearby, but it wasn’t Kerl, and it took her a moment to recognize
