Chapter 98. A New Beginning

For the first time in her life,

Aria stirred awake to the sound of silence and the warmth of a fluffy bed.

For a moment, as she got her bearings, she simply laid on the bed, her eyes still half closed as the heaviness of sleep threatened to drown her again. The sheaths around her were soft, softer than anything she had ever seen or even touched. And her bed? Her bed was so large that she could have rolled over multiple times from one side to the other, and she still would not have fallen off.

Aria frowned as she felt the sleep fade away and her eyes grow alert. Her gaze swept upward, towards the huge white ceiling above her new bed. The ceiling was painted on the margins with delicate swirls of gold and dark red.

From the moment she was born, Aria remembered living her life in cottages, huts or even damp, dim--lit rooms barely large enough to hold a mattress. Yet, here she was, waking up in a chamber so vast that she still could not wrap her head around it.