Cedric
The next day I returned to the palace for work.
Everything felt slightly different walking back through those familiar corridors, lighter somehow, like something that had been pressing down on my chest for months had finally shifted just enough to let me breathe properly.
Nora was awake. She was weak and thin and had a long road of recovery ahead of her, but she was awake and talking and had already managed to tell me I looked tired, which meant she was very much herself.
I saw Gwen in the hallway not long after I arrived.
I told her everything before she could even say good morning. That the call had come early. That Nora had opened her eyes. That she was alive and conscious and holding my hand and making jokes within the first hour of waking up. The words came out faster tha
