Valyne soaked.
Really soaked. In hot water, fragrant steam, and the kind of uninterrupted silence she hadn't known since Archmagus Vaelorin had snapped his fingers and cursed her with this mission, code named after a certain elf shaped migraine known as Corvin Blackmoor.
The Synod trader ship had not been kind to her nerves. Not with its creaky planks, overly strange crew, and Shadows that might as well have been fused to her shadow. Bath had been… theoretical. Valyne had quickly determined that bathing in the presence of invisible stalkers was not only uncomfortable, it was war crime adjacent. She had enough stalkers at Arcanum.
But now? Now she luxuriated. The water was nearly scalding, steeped in crushed flowers and salts she couldn't name. Her muscles melted. Her thoughts, not so much. But it was a start.
After the bath came the bed, down stuffed, perfectly warm, and so quiet it made her suspicious. She slept like the dead, though with more grace.
