Astrid
The morning light filtered in through the windows, soft and gold. The fire still crackled low in the hearth, but I wasn’t in bed. I sat on the padded stool near the fire, cradling a mug of warm ginger tea in my hands, staring at nothing.
The door creaked open.
“You’re early,” I said without turning.
“I never left,” came the calm, dry voice of Hatiana, my healer.
She entered with a rustle of silks and furs, her eyes moving over me with the focus of someone who’d done this for longer than most had lived. Her hands were already glowing faintly with that soft, green energy she used to check the balance of my blood, my strength, the child within me.
“You didn’t sleep,” she said, resting her hand on my shoulder.
“Too much in my head,” I murmured.
She crouched beside me, one palm g
