144 Tempered

Arran tried to move and found that his body responded slowly and sluggishly, as if it had been drained of all its power. He could tell that he was lying down — in a bed, he thought — but he had no idea where he was.

"Finally awake, are you?"

Arran opened his eyes and saw Tuya sitting next to his bed, enthusiastically eating what looked to be a roasted leg of meat.

His memories were vague and blurry, but he could recall suffering intense pain, feeling as if his body was being burned to ashes and thinking he was going to die.

"What happened?" he asked, just saying the words costing him a great deal of effort.

He sat up, and at once he could tell that his body felt frail and feeble, different from how it was supposed to feel — wrong somehow.

"And why do I feel so weak?"

"It seems your Tempering was unusually harsh," Tuya said, finishing the leg of meat and picking up another one from a table at the side of the room. "You should consider yourself lucky."