Everything hurt, and I was getting used to it, which was probably a worse sign than the pain itself.
I lay on my back in the ash and the dirt, staring up through what was left of the canopy. The white-wood trees above me were scorched and cracked, their yellow-brown leaves curling from heat, but they were still standing. Stubborn things. I could relate.
My breathing was a wreck, every inhale scraped through my chest like dragging furniture across a stone floor, and my left arm had stopped hurting entirely, which meant it had either healed itself or gone numb enough to worry about later. The Frostfang was still planted in the beast's skull three feet to my right, and I didn't have the energy to pull it free.
I closed my eyes. Just for a moment.
