Kael woke to a faint vibration against his wrist.
For a moment, he did not know where he was.
His eyes opened to a low ceiling, pale with old paint and faint water stains near one corner. Weak sunlight spilled through the small window of his apartment, cutting a narrow rectangle across the floor and the pile of letters near the door. The mattress beneath him had sagged under his weight during the night, and one of its springs pressed rudely against his back, as if determined to remind him that returning to civilization did not mean returning to luxury.
The bracelet on his wrist vibrated again.
Kael stared at it.
Then he remembered.
Association communication device.
He sat up slowly, surprised to find the sun already up. Not dawn. Not the thin blue-gray light of early morning. Proper morning. The city outside was alive, its usual noise muffled by the old walls and thin glass. He had overslept.
That bothered him more than it should have.
