Chapter 122 A Dream

• NARINE
• The first thing I registered wasn’t the softness of the mattress or the smell of lavender drifting from the linens. It was the faint ache in my chest, the same one that had clung to me all through the night like a bruise.
• I kept my eyes closed, willing myself to believe this was still a dream. That if I opened them, I’d find cracked plaster overhead, hear the draft whistling through the warped window, smell the sour tang of old wood in the air, and I’d hear the thump of the innkeeper’s broom against the floor.