Cairn would begin again soon. It would be wretched. And then the healers would return with their sweet-smelling smoke, as they had come these months, these years, however long it had been.
But she'd seen beyond them, for an instant. Had seen canvas fabric draped overhead, rushes covered with woven rugs beneath their feet. Braziers smouldered all around.
A tent. She was in a tent. Murmuring trickled in, to her Fae ears, though not from nearby. People speaking in both the Old Language and her own tongue, complaining about cramped camp conditions.
An army camp, full of Fae.
A more secure location, Cairn had said. Maeve had wanted her here, to guard her from Morath. Until Maeve clamped the cold wyrdstone collar around her neck.
He'd let her rot in the coffin for a while. It was quieter her, without the endless, droning roar of the river.
Nothing but that pressure, building and building and building under her skin, in her head. She could not outrun it, even in oblivion.
But still the irons dug in, chafing against her skin as time wheeled by. As Maeve undoubtedly brought that wyrdstone collar closer with each hour.
Then oblivion swept in. When she woke, cleaned and without an ache, she knew Cairn was soon to begin. His canvas had been wiped bare, ready for him to paint red. His terrible, grand finale, not to pry information from her, not with Maeve's triumph at hand, but for his own warped pleasure.