#taldorei
Cadiana had no memory of her first breath. There was no stream of consciousness; one moment she had her halberd drawn, ready to fulfil her oath against what pursued them, and the next she was supine on a bed.
Head to toe, she wasn’t right. She felt lopsided in the mouth—one of her tusks was gone. Her lips were dry and chapped and it felt like dust lined the inside of her throat and nose. A dull ache gripped her left hand.
There was a prickling under the surface of her skin, like someone had removed it all with a scalpel and draped it back on, down to an ache in the pith of her bones, like those’d been smashed to ash with a mallet and glued back together. Every part of her felt meticulously taken apart and reborn, stiff and rusty, new and old. She opened her eyes.