Chapter 2 Rebirth

I woke to coughing.

It wasn’t me coughing. Someone else’s cough, weak and rough, rattled in a chest too small to hold it. The kind of cough that comes from lungs full of fluid. I tried to move. My body screamed in protest, but the pain felt strange; everything felt strange. I was too light, too small. When I lifted my hands, they were pale and fragile, nails chewed down. Child’s hands. Hands that had never held a weapon, never thrown a punch, only clung to life in the smallest, most desperate way.

What?

The coughing came again. Closer. Inside my head.

No. It was inside my ears. Someone was coughing nearby, but also not nearby. It was the memory of coughing, the ghost of a sound. It seemed to exist somewhere between now and the past, between my mind and someone else’s.

I forced my eyes open.

The ceiling above me was rotting wood. Sunlight slipped through gaps in the planks, lighting up dust motes in the air. The room smelled of mold, sickness, and something sweet beneath it all. It was the scent of decay, like flowers left too long in water, something beautiful that had died and been forgotten.

This wasn't the riverbank. This wasn't the base of the cliff. This wasn't anywhere I'd ever been.

I sat up or tried to. My body wouldn't obey properly. It took three attempts just to lift my head, and when I finally managed it, the room spun violently. Nausea rose in my throat. Spots danced before my eyes. I gripped the edge of whatever I was lying on, a thin pallet stuffed with straw, I realized, and waited for the world to settle.

It didn't. Not really. But after a long moment, I could at least look around.

A shack. I was in a shack. One room, barely furnished. A rickety table with one leg shorter than the others, propped up by a folded piece of paper. A chair with three legs, the fourth snapped off, and was lying nearby. A window with no glass, just wooden shutters hanging crooked on their hinges, letting in slivers of cold autumn air.

A small hearth, cold and dark, with a few scraps of kindling that wouldn't last an hour if lit. A bucket in the corner that served as a chamber pot. A single shelf with a few pieces of cheap pottery, a cup, a bowl, a plate with a crack running through its center.

And a mirror.

It was small and cracked, propped against the wall as if someone had once cared about their reflection. The glass was spotted with age, the frame chipped and peeling, but it still worked. Still showed whoever looked into it the truth of their face.

I dragged myself toward it, using the wall for support, my borrowed legs trembling with every step. Each movement sent fresh waves of weakness through me. This body had been starved. Abused. Neglected. It was a miracle it was alive at all.

The facein the mirror looked young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Dark hair stuck to a pale forehead, greasy from neglect. Cheekswere hollow from years of hunger. Shadows under the eyes caught the dim light as I leaned closer. My eyes had always been brown, the color ofearth and wood, things that went unnoticed. But these eyes were winter-silver, wide in a face too thin, too pale, too young to hold the soul now staring out.

I raised a hand.

The reflection raised a hand.

I touched my cheek. The reflection did the same.

The skin was cold, not the chill of death I knew too well, but the cold of starvation, of a body barely clinging to life.

No.

This wasn't possible. I'd fallen hundreds of feet onto solid rock. I'd felt my bones shatter. I'd felt my heart stop. I'd felt the darkness take me, complete and absolute, the way it takes everyone eventually.

So why was I breathing?