Nikolai

The infirmary smelled like death.

I had been in too many infirmaries to count—battlefield tents, field hospitals, the cold stone rooms where healers worked their magic on dying men. But this one was different. This one smelled like hope that had already curdled, like a life that was slipping away despite everything.

The guard was young. Too young. His face was pale, his skin slick with sweat, his eyes glassy with the kind of pain that came from wounds that couldn't be healed. The ...