Jin woke to sunlight on his face and the sound of someone laughing in the courtyard below.
For a moment he didn't know where he was. His body remembered before his mind did, stiff and sore from his ribs to his fingertips, the bandage on his hand crusted and tight. Then the rest came back all at once. The maze. The arena. The dark room full of silhouettes. The quiet weight in his chest, still sitting there beneath his ribs like a second heart.
He lay still and listened to it for a while.
Then he sat up, winced, and swung his legs off the bed. He'd fallen asleep in his boots. The sun was already high, which meant he'd slept through the whole morning. Nobody had woken him. He suspected that had been on purpose.
He splashed water on his face from the basin in the corner, rewrapped his hand with a clean strip of cloth, and went downstairs.
