Less than three

It's a stiff neck. It's a... pain in the spine. It's an ingrown thorn. Helena wishes it were just a memory, but this process keeps sucking her in. It's such an embedded parasite...
The symptoms? It's like being chained to your own heart, which weighs more than the raft you're trying to keep afloat by banging on glass oars. There are only shards left.
What does she do with those shards? A kind of... strength of spirit.