Her vision was still blurry, eyes dry. She tried to make out shapes. The walls were made of white stone, marbled with dark grey. A stone table set nearby, lined with tonics, vials, metal instruments, and gauze, some dirty with blood and others fresh.
She shifted and gasped as it tugged on her leg. Her ankle?—
It came rushing back.
The flight. The Umbra. Thenetting.
Her fall.
The pain in her ankle as it slammed against the rocks, her twisted, mangled hand from her fall to the ground.
Her wings throbbed behind her on the table as she twisted, tendons in her neck straining as she lifted her head. The action took a lot out of her. She panted as she stared down at her body.
A thin white sheet was draped over her, the edges slipping from her chest with every ragged, gasping breath. She was nude beneath. And so, so cold.
Every time she blinked, sheremembered, and that made her breathing grow more erratic. Her lungs felt tight, as if they were empty, could pop from her chest and drift away at any moment.
She was gasping, wheezing. Chest cracking.
The sheet slipped free as she twisted on the table, and she fell to the ground with a hollow thud. It jarred her entire left side, sending pain up through her shoulder. She couldn’t move, couldn’t move.
She curled her legs to her chest as best as she could, crying.
"H-help," she tried to say, but her voice broke.
Footsteps approached.
Shadows on the ground.
She wheezed, still unable to get a breath, as firm hands took her shoulders and lifted her. She sagged between two bodies, chin dipping to her chest. It felt like bags of grain were tethered to her wings and head, forcing her whole body to droop. She couldn’t walk, so they dragged her and helped her back onto the table. She saw now that it was a large slab of white stone, raised high in the center of the room. The sheet was pooled on the floor.
Luella was nude, exposed.
She trembled as she lifted her head, staring at the two who held her—two females, wearing plain grey gowns and fitted caps over their hair, plaited into tight buns.
They wouldn’t look her in the eye.
Their ears were pointed, features delicate. Fae.
She was laid back on the table, the sheet tucked over her, once more.
Her entire body throbbed with lingering aches, as if she’d been flayed and put back together all wrong?—
A female’s face hovered before her. Luella tried to focus on her features. Hard eyes, pale blue. Hair that was threaded with white and black. Like the marbled walls.
"W-where—am I?" Luella slurred.
The female canted her head, a hand pressing on Luella’s lower stomach as she started to palpate the area under her navel, then traveled up to her chest, out to each shoulder, and down her forearms. When she got to Luella’s right wrist, Luella screamed, back bowing off the stone.
The fae’s hands stilled. "You are still hurt." Her voice was soft, slightly scratchy, as if she didn’t talk a lot. She pulled away.
Luella heard the soft tinkling of glass and the crackling of a small fire. She dozed, then woke up when a hand touched her chin and jaw, thumb digging into the side under her ear until her mouth was forced to open from the pressure.
She gave a gasping moan as the female held her mouth open, then poured a glass vial down her throat. It sloshed over her tongue and hit the back of her throat; she gagged, forced to swallow.
The taste was unlike anything she’d experienced before—iron and meaty, with a sludge-like texture.
The females spoke to each other. Luella tried to hang onto their words.
