Melinda had not meant to be awake.
She had every intention of sleeping. She'd even gone through the motions — changed out of her dress, let her hair down, lay in the bed that still smelled faintly of unfamiliar wood and cold stone. But somewhere between closing her eyes and actual sleep, her body had simply… declined to follow through.
It had been happening more frequently over the past week. Not insomnia, exactly. It was less like lying awake and more like her mind had decided it no longer needed the dark interval. She would close her eyes and instead of drifting she would simply… wait. Aware. Her senses filtering through the fortress walls as if the stone were gauze.
