Serah's POV
Everything came back in pieces, sharp, stinging pieces. The ache in my belly was gone, replaced by a hollow burn that started in my chest and spread like fire through dry grass. My eyelids felt heavy, glued shut with exhaustion, but the smell of warm thick blood pulled me awake. Coppery blood was still fresh in the air, and underneath it, the faint sweetness of herbs the midwives always burned to chase away bad spirits.
I forced my eyes open. Dawn hadn't fully broken; the sky outside the small window was the bruised purple of early morning. The room looked wrong, too bright in some corners, too shadowed in others. My vision kept jumping, sharpening on tiny details: a drop of red sliding down the leg of the wooden table, the frayed edge of a blood-soaked cloth, the slow rise and fall of someone breathing nearby.
