(Kaelen)
The nightmares start on the third night.
Not the first or second — those nights I sleep the heavy, medicated sleep that Mira orchestrates, something in the tea that takes me under fast and keeps me there, and I don't dream or if I do I don't remember it. By the third night the medication is gone and my body is most of the way through the wolfsbane and my wolf is back — fully back, present and warm and herself — and I should sleep better.
I don't.
The first one wakes me at two in the morning. Stone floor. The cell. The particular quality of dark that has no gray in it. I come awake gasping and can't locate myself for three full seconds — can't remember where the walls are or which way the door is or whether the bolt is on the inside or outside and it matters, it matters, I need
