ZAMIRAS POV
Sleep does not come gently.
It never has.
When it finally drags me under, it does so by force.
I am standing barefoot on stone that is too cold to belong to night. The air tastes like ash and rust. Somewhere close—too close—iron scrapes against iron. Chains. Always chains.
The camp stretches endlessly before me, rows of cages bent and warped, some empty, some not. Fires burn low, casting long shadows that stretch like fingers trying to grab my ankles.
Someone screams.
I turn, but the sound cuts in half—sharp on my right side, muffled and distant on my left. Like the world itself is breaking unevenly.
I know this place.
I have always known it.
I am thirteen again. Smaller. Lighter. Still stupid enough to believe I might survive without losing pieces of myself.
A voice calls my name.
Not shouted. Not whispered.
Measured.
Royal.
I don't look at him, but I feel him standing behind me. The King's presence is a weight—pressing, inevitable. His boots stop inches from my heels.
"You learned quickly," he says. "That's why you're still alive."
I remember this moment.
The first time I was brought into the palace, washed clean and dressed in silk that felt like another kind of chain. The first time I learned how easily doors opened when you bowed your head low enough.
Slave.
Spy.
Rebel.
All the same thing, if you used them correctly.
"Watch," he had told me. "Listen. Tell me everything."
Listen.
The word twists.
I strain to hear the sounds around me—the guards, the keys, the footsteps—but the left side of the world goes quiet again, swallowed whole. Panic claws up my throat.
I try to speak.
No sound comes out.
The ground tilts. My chest tightens sharply, like a fist closing around my heart. One beat stumbles. Then another. My vision blurs at the edges.
Not now.
Not again.
The fire flares higher, and suddenly the cages are full.
Faces I knew. Faces I led. Faces that trusted me.
"You promised," one of them says.
My heart skips.
The King laughs.
"Zamira!"
Hands grab my shoulders.
I gasp awake, air tearing into my lungs like I've been drowning. My heart hammers wildly, uneven and painful, and I clutch at my chest before I can stop myself.
The room swims into focus slowly.
Stone walls. Soft candlelight. The familiar outline of two beds pushed close together.
Rosalith.
She's kneeling beside me, hair loose, eyes wide with fear. "Hey—hey, you're here. You're safe. You were dreaming."
I swallow hard, my throat raw. My left ear still rings, sound slow to return, like the world is deciding whether I deserve it back.
"I'm fine," I say automatically.
It's a lie. We both know it.
Rosalith doesn't argue. She just sits on the edge of my bed and pulls the blanket tighter around my shoulders, gentle in a way that almost hurts more than the nightmare.
"You were shaking," she says quietly. "Like you were trying to run."
I don't answer.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The silence is thick but not uncomfortable. Just heavy.
Eventually, Rosalith lies back down—but not in her own bed. She drags her blanket over and curls up beside me, shoulder to shoulder, like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"You don't have to talk," she says softly. "But you don't have to be alone either."
Something in my chest twists.
I stare up at the ceiling, watching moonlight crawl slowly across the stone.
"I don't sleep well," I admit.
Rosalith lets out a small, humorless laugh. "Neither do I."
I hesitate. Then, quietly—so quietly I almost don't hear myself—I say, "There are things wrong with me."
She turns her head to look at me, waiting.
"Sometimes," I continue, "the world goes quiet on one side. And my heart… it doesn't always beat right. It stumbles. Like it forgets what it's supposed to do."
Rosalith doesn't flinch. Doesn't gasp. Doesn't pity me.
She just nods.
"Yeah," she says. "I get that."
I turn to her, surprised.
She's smiling—but it's softer than usual, tired at the edges. "People think being broken has to look obvious," she adds. "Like scars or limps or screaming. But most of the time, it just looks like someone who learned how to smile at the right moments."
The words settle between us.
After a long pause, she speaks again.
"My parents were good," she says suddenly. "Everyone says that about dead people, but… they really were."
I stay silent, listening.
"They ruled Emberville. Autumn Court. Warm halls. Laughter everywhere." Her voice wavers just slightly. "My siblings hated me for it. Said I was weak. Useless. That I'd ruin everything."
Her fingers curl into the blanket.
"They killed our parents when I was seven. Not quietly. And not quickly."
I don't interrupt.
"They kept me after," she continues. "Locked me away. Beat me when they were angry. Ignored me when they weren't. I learned how to be invisible."
Her smile returns—too practiced. "Then one day, a messenger came. Summer Court. Said they didn't want the youngest child of Emberville."
She exhales. "So my siblings threw me at them like I was trash."
The candle flickers.
"I've been smiling ever since," she finishes. "Because if I don't… then they win."
I turn toward her fully now.
"We're not normal," I say quietly.
Rosalith's eyes meet mine in the dark.
"No," she agrees. "But maybe that's not a bad thing."
Silence stretches.
Then, softly, almost playfully, she adds, "If the world was fair, it wouldn't have broken us like this."
Something hard settles into place inside me.
"If I never had peace," I say slowly, "why should anyone else get to keep it?"
Rosalith doesn't look away.
"Then," she says, voice steady, "we'll make sure they remember us."
We lie there, side by side, until her breathing evens out and sleep finally takes her.
I stay awake.
Listening to half the world.
Planning.