Her head throbbed.
Dizzy.
Fuzzy.
Like she'd been dropped through glass and stitched back wrong.
Thoughts scattered.
Memory—fragmented.
Where…?
What happened?
She groaned, breath shallow.
"A-ah… my head…"
Pain stabbed behind her eyes.
A cold sweat broke across her skin.
Then—
Kael.
The name hit like lightning.
And with it—everything came back.
The carriage.
The suite.
The bracelet.
The smile.
The lie.
Mirielle's eyes flew open, wide, wild.
She was still in that room.
The same lavish suite.
The same soft candlelight.
The same perfume of roses drifting through the open balcony.
But something was wrong.
Very wrong.
She couldn't move her left arm.
She looked down—
—and froze.
Her heart lurched into her throat.
Her left arm was gone.
Cut clean at the elbow.
The severed limb lay inches away, palm open in a twisted, peaceful mockery.
Blood pulsed from the stump in slow, sickening rhythm.
No—nononono—
She almost screamed again.
Almost.
