Daisy POV
For a few heartbeats after Sitara's footsteps faded down the stone corridor, the infirmary was a tomb. The only sound was the shallow, rattling breath of the two dying souls left behind.
Then, the air changed.
The stagnant smell of decay and herbal poultices seemed to sharpen, turned into something electric.
Xira, who moments ago had been a waxy shell of a woman, suddenly jerked. Her eyes didn't open, yet she sat up with a fluid, haunting grace as if invisible wires were hoisting her upper body toward the rafters.
She was in a trance, her face a mask of primal need. Her damaged arm, still swaddled in Sitara's heavy towels, hung at her side like a broken wing, but she didn't seem to feel the weight or the rot.
She slid off the cot, her bare feet making no sound on the cold floor as she drifted toward Luther.
She stood over him for a moment, her shadow stretching long and jagged across his pale chest.
