LUCY
I wake to the smell of flowers.
Not one bouquet's worth, either—an overwhelming, cloying wall of scent that hits me before my eyes have even properly opened, thick and sweet and slightly too much, the kind of smell that makes your throat close a little if you breathe it in too deeply.
For one foolish second, still tangled in the last soft edges of sleep, I smile against the pillow.
Tavric. He brought me flowers.
I stretch, and the movement catches on something—a deep, bone-level soreness radiating through my back and shoulders, my muscles aching the particular way they do after real exertion rather than sleep.
I go still for a moment, remembering, taking inventory of myself, half-braced for the burning to still be there, waiting to reignite the second I moved wrong. But there's nothing.
