Nikolai

Everything was haze.

Consciousness returned in fragments—the cold stone against my back, the ache in my muscles, the metallic tang of blood coating my tongue. I tried to open my eyes, but the light was too sharp, too bright, slicing through my skull like knives.

I lay still, breathing slowly, letting my body remember how to exist.

The first thing I registered was the cold. I was naked, my skin pressed against stone that held the chill of deep earth. The second was the blood—not ...