She was free of the cage but not free of anything that mattered.
She sat on the edge of the bed, the first real bed she'd touched in eight days, and something inside her cracked. Just slightly. Just enough that her eyes burned with tears she refused to let fall.
She was so tired. Tired of being afraid. Tired of being strong. Tired of surviving. Tired of calculating escape routes and weapon locations and odds of survival.
But survival was all she had left. So she pushed the exhaustion down, packed the emotions away in the same mental box where she'd locked everything else that might make her weak.
Outside, she heard Thessian moving around, the crackle of the fire catching, the ordinary domestic sounds of someone settling in for the night.
Tomorrow they would plan. Tomorrow they will figure out how to investigate her father and expose the conspiracy. Tomorrow they would work together because neither had a choice.
