The days after I woke up were a strange blur of pain, recovery, and a tension so thick it felt like I could slice through it with a knife. My injuries, though healing, kept me bedridden for longer than I would have liked.
Each day, I felt my strength slowly returning, but it wasn't just the physical wounds that were taking their toll on me. The real battle, it seemed, was the one waged in the silence that hung between Ciara and me.
Ciara, for all her usual aloofness, had become a constant presence in the infirmary. She was there in the mornings when I woke, usually with some kind of food or herbal remedy in hand.
She was there in the afternoons, when the pain flared up again, helping me adjust my position in bed or reminding me to drink the bitter, foul-smelling concoctions that the healers swore by. And she was there in the evenings, when exhaustion would drag me down into a restless sleep, her shadowy figure lingering just out of reach.
