#Chapter 188: Healing the Divide

Amelia I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could feel the tension in the room. Even unconscious, my body registered the hum of something too sterile, too sharp. The infirmary, again. Somewhere in the distance, someone whispered my name. A low, gravel-soft murmur, familiar in a way that made my fingers twitch involuntarily. Richard. My body, traitorous and exhausted, tried to rise toward the sound, but nothing moved. The muscles were too heavy, like I was swimming through oil. I drifted in and out of awareness, clinging to fragments. The warmth of a hand against my temple. The scent of peppered mint and clean wool. The sound of someone pacing, stopping, and pacing again. There were other voices, less kind, older and sharper. They echoed from somewhere else in the building, behind walls or outside doors, but I heard them anyway. "This was always the risk." "She should have been contained the moment her blood shifted." "She's not a wolf, not really, not anymore." "Or she's exact