Selendra left.
Alfons stayed where he was, looking at the door she had walked through only a few breaths before.
The wood had shut tight behind her. Nothing of her was left in the room. No blood, no spell mark, no proof that a Nocthar heir had stood here and spoken of his house broken beneath its own towers. His jaw had drawn tight enough to ache.
The bite below his thumb beat in time with his pulse, and every beat dragged the same three things to the front of his mind.
Three people. Eight towers. A choice.
'Argh. I do not like a single part of this.'
He turned from the door, and the feeling came with him. It pressed under his ribs, set his fingers twitching, and left him wanting to put his fist through something costly. Breaking furniture was for children, drunks, and men without servants who would report it by morning.
'It is one possible future,' he told himself. 'One road. One vision. Nothing signed.'
