(Almera's POV)
The first thing I felt when I woke was not pleasure—but weight.
A deep, aching heaviness settled into my limbs, as if my body itself had not yet realized the world outside the bed still existed. The silk sheets were cool against my skin, perfumed faintly with sandalwood and something darker—something unmistakably his. For a moment, I did not move. I lay there, eyes half-open, listening.
The palace breathed around me.
Distant footsteps echoed down marble corridors. The soft rustle of curtains stirred by a morning breeze. Somewhere far beyond these walls, Alexandria had already awakened, its people beginning another day beneath a sun that felt impossibly removed from the cocoon I had lived in for three days and nights.
Three days.
The realization struck me slowly, like a tide pulling back to reveal what had been hidden beneath.
I had not stepped beyond these chambers since the wedding night.
Not once.
