Elara woke to sunlight.
Real sunlight, not the filtered grey that usually made it through the oiled canvas covering her windows. She blinked against it, disoriented for a moment, then realized someone had replaced the canvas with actual glass while she slept.
Her first thought was annoyance—people had entered her room while she was unconscious—followed immediately by the acknowledgment that this was efficient. The windows needed replacing. Someone had handled it without requiring her direct supervision.
'Delegation,' she thought. 'Working as intended.'
She sat up slowly, testing her body's responses. The headache was gone. The bone-deep exhaustion had receded to something manageable. Her fingers still had that faint tremor when she flexed them, but it was noticeably reduced from last night.
Seven and a half hours of sleep.
She'd actually done it.
And she felt... better. Objectively, measurably better than she had in weeks. Maybe months.
