Working in a dead-end, post office job in the heart of a primarily-Human city, Arya Salcrest cannot let her secret out else she loses her rights and her safety. Norren Sterling, a member of the Council whom she met after a failed museum trip, is det...
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The sun was in Arya's face, shining past her eyelids. She groaned and tried swatting at it. Pain exploded in her shoulder which prompted her to gasp and open her eyes.
"Arya, darling!" Cornelia's voice fluttered in Arya's ears. "How are you feeling?"
Arya raised her hand to her eyes, her hazy vision slowly returning to focus. The sun wasn't the sun. Rather, it was an array of bright incandescent bulbs flushing the room with pure white light. "Can you turn it off?" her voice was hoarse, evidenced by a scratchy feeling in her throat. How long was she out? Moreover...why was she alive?
Her last memory was of the warehouse. The gunshots. Norren turning. Grottway retrieving his pistol and firing. After that, nothing. How did she end up here? What happened to Norren? Where was he?
"Sorry, dear. You're in a common ward," Cornelia answered. Her aunt stood up from the stool with a squeak and fussed about Arya's sheets. "Are you cold? Hungry? Thirsty? You're sure to be thirsty after taking so long in that operating room—"
"What happened, Cornelia?" Arya attempted to sit up but the pain in her back and shoulders intensified. She fell back with a groan. "Damned biscuits. What did they hit me with?"
Worry creased her aunt's face. "When you took too long in getting the supplies, I began to be concerned. You didn't return when you normally would and I have this unmistakable feeling in my gut that something happened," she recounted. "So, I followed you to the food shop. I asked the clerks there and they told me you never made it. I was about to wire the Maltarci back home when I found this handsome young man at the flat—"
"What?" Arya interjected. Norren went to her aunt? "You met him?"
"I don't know if we're talking about the same 'him', but the young man told me you might be in danger," Cornelia continued. "He told me to stay put while he 'fixes' something. The next thing I know, he was wiring me about you in a hospice after being shot."
Tears misted in Cornelia's eyes. She plucked a sheet of tissue from the nearby box and began dabbing at the corners. "When I arrived here, they told me you're in the operating room. The next time I see you, you're unconscious and with bandages wrapped around you like a cocoon."
Arya pursed her lips. Cornelia started bawling now. "What in Ouine's name happened to you?" she said. "If your parents see how poorly I took care of you, they'd be turning in their graves."
At the mention of her parents, all the grim things revealed to her in that warehouse came back. The truth...
"Do you promise to listen and not interrupt as I'm telling the story?" Arya looked her aunt in the eye, knowing full well she wouldn't ever honor that promise even as she nodded. Finally, she blew a breath, as much as her uncorseted stomach would allow. "Fine. Here I go."
Everything came spilling out, then. Starting from meeting Norren, to her dreams, until the warehouse. When she got to the bit about Grottway admitting to killing her parents, Cornelia gasped and covered her mouth with a hand.
