Elara learned the shape of exhaustion the way other people learned the shape of love, slowly and then all at once, until it became a familiar presence that greeted her before the sun did, settling over her shoulders with a quiet certainty as though it had always belonged there. She did not wake with dreams clinging to her mind anymore; she woke with a dull awareness that another day had arrived, and she had to decide—again—whether she had the strength to carry it.
Elara learned the shape of exhaustion the way other people learned the shape of love, slowly and then all at once, until it became a familiar presence that greeted her before the sun did, settling over her shoulders with a quiet certainty as though it had always belonged there. She did not wake w...