Consciousness returned to Adam not with a jolt, but as a slow, painful tide. A deep, throbbing agony radiated from his lower body, a constant, nauseating reminder of his sacrifice.
He was in a small, secluded cave, the air thick with the scent of crushed herbs and damp earth. Piles of leaves and moss were packed around him, and he realized with a dull shock that someone—or something—had dragged him here and tended to his wound.
He forced his head up, the movement sending fresh spikes of pain through his neck. His eyes fell on the stump where his tail used to be.
The bleeding had stopped, the wound sealed over by a rough, scab-like layer of... was that chewed-up leaf pulp and spider silk? It was a crude, desperate bandage, but it had worked. The tail itself, however, was gone. Not regrowing. Just a brutal, permanent-looking amputation.
