Chapter 15 – Azaria
AZARIA
Iwoke to light that didn’t stab. Still dim, because Myrin kept the runes low, but manageable. I opened my eyes without flinching, catalogued the ceiling, the walls, the familiar shape of the recovery room. Progress. The kind that would have been meaningless a week ago.
I sat up slowly, testing. Head ached, dull and distant, but not splitting. Hands shook when I lifted them, but less than yesterday. The silver band caught the light, the skin beneath it still raw where I’d twisted it bloody. I left it alone. The time-marker bracelet pulsed once against my wrist.
Morning.
I counted three breaths, slow and uneven, then swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold beneath my feet. Real. Solid. I held onto that.
Breakfast sat on the small table: bread, cheese, sliced fruit. I ate slowly and mechanically. The bread tasted slightly sweet. The cheese was sharp. More than yesterday. Less flat.
I managed the spoon without fumbling. One hand, steady enough.
My fingers still trembled around the handle, a faint vibration I couldn’t will away, but the food reached my mouth without incident.
A week ago, I’d attuned to an artifact the size of a barrel.
Now I was congratulating myself on operating a spoon.
The rage was quiet and banked, but closer to the surface than yesterday. I didn’t reach for it. Not yet.
The door opened quietly. Myrin stepped inside, carrying a tray with vials and a clean cloth. She moved with practised efficiency, no wasted motion, no unnecessary sound. Every step was calibrated not to startle me. I noticed. It still grated.
“You’re up,” she said.
“Apparently.”
My voice sounded better. Still flat, still scraped, but clearer. Less like a stranger’s. She set the tray down and ran a quick scan with her hand hovering over my chest, my temples, my wrists. Magic hummed faintly, warm and controlled. I sat still for it. Didn’t bristle. But I wanted to.
“Pulse is steadier,” she said. “Hydration improved. You’re stabilizing faster than expected.”
“Good,” the word came out clipped. Not gratitude. Impatience. Stabilizing faster than expected still meant shaking hands and a head that ached when the light shifted wrong.
She studied me for a moment, assessing. Then she straightened. “I think you’re ready for a visitor,” she said. “If you want one.”
I went still.
A visitor.
My first instinct was no. I didn’t want to be seen like this: hands that couldn’t stay steady, a voice that came out wrong, the captain reduced to a woman who counted spoon-grip as a victory.
But underneath that? Need.
I wanted to know what had happened. If the squad was safe. If the council was still intact. And I wanted to know if I could sit across from someone I knew and hold a conversation without fracturing. I wasn’t sure I could. That uncertainty made me angrier than anything else.
“Who?” I asked quietly.
“Dain,” Myrin said. “He’s been asking every day.”
Of course he had. Dain. My Second. My anchor. The man who’d held the line while I was gone.
Something tightened in my chest. Not quite emotion, more like pressure. I could do this. Maybe. Five minutes. Information only.
“All right,” I said.
Myrin nodded once, unsurprised. “I’ll set boundaries. Time limit. I stay nearby. You can stop anytime if it’s too much.”
“I know how the recovery protocol works,” I said, and the edge in my voice was sharper than I’d intended.
Myrin didn’t react. She never did. That was either a professional skill or a personal one, and either way it made me want to push harder, which was its own kind of pathetic.
She moved to adjust the runes again, dimming them further, softening the light. Then she stepped toward the door. “One more thing,” she said, pausing at the threshold.
I looked up.
“He already saw you,” she said quietly. “The first night. You don’t remember, but he was here.”
Something cold slid down my spine. “What?”
“You were still unresponsive. He spoke to you, listed the squad, tried to reach you.” She paused. “You didn’t recognize him.”
I stared at her, throat tight. I didn’t remember. Didn’t remember Dain being here, didn’t remember him seeing me broken, watching me twist my ring in the dark while I?—
Shame hit first, hot and immediate, settling heavy in my chest. Then the anger.
Not at Dain. At Hallen. Vareck. Every councilor who’d signed that order and put me in a position where my Second-in-command had to kneel beside me and watch me not recognize his voice.
They’d done that. They’d taken that from me—from both of us—and I hadn’t even been conscious enough to know it was happening.
Rage.
I swallowed it down. Not the time.
“Does he know I don’t remember?” My voice came out quieter than I meant.
“Probably,” Myrin said. “But he’ll understand.”
I nodded. Not because I believed her, but because there was nothing else to say. Myrin studied me for one more moment, then left. The door clicked shut softly behind her.
I sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in my lap to stop them from shaking. I pressed my fingers together, tight, controlled, willing the tremor to stop through sheer force of intent.
It didn’t.
Five minutes. I could do this.
Footsteps approached in the hallway. Slow. Measured. I straightened my spine, forcing my hands to remain still. The door opened.
Dain stepped inside and stopped beyond the threshold. He looked tired. Dark shadows carved beneath his eyes. Shoulders drawn with tension that hadn’t eased even now that I was out. I noted it distantly, the way you’d note weather through a window. Present and real, but not quite reaching me.
His eyes swept over me—quick, careful. Cataloguing.
I knew what he was seeing: the hollow cheeks, the raw skin around my ring finger, the way I sat too straight, too rigid, compensating for the fact that my body wanted to curl in on itself.
I didn’t look away. He’d seen me worse. I didn’t remember it, but he had. This was an improvement, apparently.
The thought tasted bitter.
His gaze met mine. Held. Neither of us spoke. The silence stretched, heavy and full of things neither of us knew how to say. I tried to find words. Failed. Tried again.
“What happened?” I finally asked.
He moved further into the room. Stopped a few paces from the bed. Not too close. I was grateful for that, and I hated being grateful for it.
“The council voted to release you on Day Seven,” he said, voice low and even. “Seven to four. Tywin rallied the votes he needed. Miren and Vareck fell in line. Hallen abstained.”
I nodded slowly, processing. The information felt distant. Important, but it belonged to someone else’s life. “Why?” I asked.
“Leverage,” he said. “Evidence of their coordination with Torven. Messages from Vasirien. Vulnerabilities. The Truthteller’s transcript.”
Torven.
Something flickered beneath the numbness. Heat, closer now. I looked down at my hands. The silver band caught the dim light, skin raw beneath it.
“The transcript,” I said quietly.
“The Truthteller stopped the interrogation on Day Five. Said your mind had fractured. That continued questioning was impossible.” He paused. “It’s on record. Official. What they did to you.”
Fractured.
The word settled, cold and familiar. I’d accepted it in the dark. Hadn’t had a choice, but hearing it now—hearing Dain say it in that careful, controlled voice—it landed differently. Like a verdict I hadn’t agreed to.
“Squad?” I asked after a moment.
His shoulders loosened slightly. “Safe. Together. Waiting for you.” He paused. “They want to see you.”
“Not yet.”
“I know.”
Silence again. I could feel him watching me. Searching for something. Proof I was still here, maybe. Still me. I wasn’t sure I had an answer for him. I wasn’t sure I had an answer for myself.
The time marker bracelet pulsed once against my wrist. Dain’s eyes flicked to it, then back to my face. I forced myself to meet his gaze.
“I didn’t break,” I said quietly. It came out less certain than I meant. Almost like a question.
Something shifted in his expression, then softened. “No,” he said, voice rough. “You didn’t.”
I nodded once. The bracelet pulsed again.
Five minutes.
Dain straightened slightly. “I should go.”
Relief washed over me. Not because I wanted him gone, but because holding this conversation, staying present, keeping my hands still, had drained me in ways that made no sense.
Five minutes. Five minutes of talking and I was exhausted.
Before I was locked up, I’d been juggling patrol schedules, reports, and half the district’s problems without breaking a sweat. Another thing they’d taken from me.
Rage.
“Tell the squad I’m recovering,” I said. The words came out instinctively. Captain’s voice. Easier to find than anything else. “I’ll see them when Myrin allows it.”
“I will.”
He moved toward the door, paused at the threshold. “Az.”
I looked up.
“You’re going to be all right,” he said quietly.
I didn’t answer. I wasn't sure I believed him. Wasn’t sure “all right” meant the same thing it used to. He held my eyes for one more moment, then left.
I sat alone in the quiet, hands folded in my lap, exhaustion settling heavy in my bones.
Torven. The council. What they’d done. It was there, underneath. Building. But right now, I was tired. Five minutes of conversation and I was tired, and that fact alone made the rage burn hotter than anything Dain had told me.
I leaned back against the pillow and closed my eyes. The numbness crept back in, soft and familiar. I let it.
For now.