Waking up was not triumphant.
It wasn't even dramatic.
I didn't claw my way out of death. No radiant fire. No divine chorus. No system singing my praises for being too stubborn to stay dead.
I woke up in a bed made of half-burned mosscloth, under a roof that still smelled like emergency tarp, with a medical flag flapping above me that someone had drawn with their foot. Probably Quicktongue.
Everything hurt. Except the part that should have—the chest.
That? That felt... warm. Not good-warm. Not fever-warm.
Like someone had taken the fire and curled it into a knot behind my ribs. Sleeping.
Waiting for me to mess up.
Again.
Quicktongue was next to the bed.
Not standing. Not alert. Just slumped over a crate, one leg wrapped in a moss splint, head resting on a stack of charcoal-smudged relay sheets.
She hadn't left me.
Even now, she was twitching in her sleep. Probably dreaming of shoutline chains or goblins trying to smuggle bread into treaty clauses again.
