I woke to the sound of my own breathing.
It startled me—how loud it was. Shallow at first, then deeper, as if my lungs had just remembered how to work. The air tasted strange. Not like the damp, stale nothingness of the place I had been—wherever that was—but sharp and alive, carrying a faint trace of soil and something green.
I lay still for a while. My body felt… foreign. Limbs heavy, yet the weight was my own. Fingers curled against the fabric beneath me—it was coarse, not silk, not linen. I opened my eyes. Light poured through a crack in the wooden shutters, falling in a golden slash across the floorboards. Dust drifted lazily in the beam, as if time here moved differently.
I tried to sit. My muscles screamed—thin cords pulled too tight after years of disuse. A small laugh escaped me, bitter and dry. Nine years. I had been gone for nine years. Dead to the world. And now… I was here.
The blanket slid from my shoulders as I stood. My bare feet touched the floor, and I swayed, gripping the side of the bed until the dizziness passed. My skin prickled all over, not from cold, but from the strange sensation of being—of inhabiting this body again.
There was a mirror against the far wall. I crossed to it slowly, each step a negotiation between my mind and legs. When I reached it, I stopped breathing.
She stared back at me. The girl I used to be was gone. In her place stood someone older, harder, carved from bone and shadow. My face was the same shape, but the eyes… they had learned too much. My lips parted, but no sound came.
Then I saw the scars.
They were everywhere—thin white lines across my arms, thick jagged seams at my ribs, the faded imprint of burns along my shoulder. I raised a hand and traced one that curved from the base of my neck to the hollow of my collarbone. The skin there was smooth but unnatural, like paper stretched too thin. Each mark whispered of a night I remembered in pieces—the iron taste of blood, the smell of smoke, the sound of laughter that wasn't laughter.
My fingers trembled. I should have felt ugly. I should have looked away. Instead, I tilted my head and studied them like a scholar reading an ancient text. They were proof. Proof that I had survived what was meant to destroy me.
A memory flashed—too quick to hold. A corridor lit by torches. A hand shoving me forward. My knees scraping stone. Then it was gone. I exhaled slowly and lowered my hand.
The room was small, its furniture plain but solid. I turned toward the door, drawn by an urge I couldn't name. My steps were steadier now, my body remembering the rhythm of movement.
The hallway smelled faintly of woodsmoke. My fingertips brushed the walls as I walked, needing the reassurance of contact. The house was quiet, yet alive—floorboards creaked softly underfoot, and somewhere far off, a clock ticked.
I found a narrow archway tucked behind the stairs. It led to a space no bigger than a closet, but it stopped me in my tracks.
A nook.
Three walls lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, each crammed with books. The air here was different—denser, saturated with the smell of old paper and leather bindings. My fingers hovered over the spines, tracing embossed letters in languages I recognized and others I did not—Latin, Old Tongue, something that looked like the curling script of the East.
I pulled one at random. The pages whispered as I opened it, revealing hand-drawn maps of lands I'd never seen. Mountains that rose like jagged teeth, rivers coiling like silver snakes. Another book held poems in a language I couldn't read, yet the shape of the words made my chest ache.
I sat cross-legged on the floor, the wood cool against my thighs, and let the books pile around me. For a moment, I forgot about the nine years. Here, surrounded by voices from centuries past, time folded in on itself. My heartbeat slowed.
But the sun shifted. Light slid across the shelves, reminding me of the world beyond this little sanctuary. I placed the books back carefully, one by one, as if returning them to their slumber.
The back door was open.
I stepped outside, and the air struck me like a touch—warm, fragrant, alive. The sun spilled over me in a rush, and I nearly fell to my knees. I had forgotten what it felt like to be bathed in light, to feel it seep into my skin, stirring something deep inside. My eyes closed.
The breeze carried the sound of leaves whispering, the faint chirp of unseen birds. My lungs drank it all in greedily, as if they feared it would be taken away again.
Then I saw him.
Akolaz was in the garden, crouched low, pulling weeds from between rows of green. The sunlight caught the curve of his cheek, the unruly dark hair falling into his eyes. He didn't look up.
I glanced down at myself. The clothes I wore were simple—loose linen trousers, a sleeveless shirt—but they revealed almost everything the mirror had shown me. Scars mapped my skin in pale relief.
My fingers found the one at my collarbone again. I pressed it gently, feeling the dull ache beneath. Then I looked at him.
Something passed between us—though he hadn't yet met my gaze. A thread pulled taut, binding us in a way I couldn't name. A kindred spirit, perhaps. Not in joy, but in the language of wounds.
For the first time in nine years, I felt… not alone.