Location:Imperial City — Seer Tower, Fifth Floor
Date/Time:TC1854.02.25
The baby was crying.
Tianlei cried at predictable intervals — every three hours, with a precision that the Tower's healers attributed to healthy development and Amara attributed to the universe's commitment to ensuring she never slept for longer than one hundred and eighty consecutive minutes. She'd timed it. In the months since his birth, she'd timed everything, because counting was the only thing that kept the silence from becoming a sound of its own.
She lifted him from the crib. Three months old. Small enough to hold in one arm. Golden eyes — Xuán bloodline dominant, the same imperial gold that Kael wore, that the Emperor wore, that the dynasty had been breeding into its children for five centuries. But sometimes, in certain light, something flickered behind those eyes. Something that wasn't the bloodline. Something residual.
She didn't think about that. She'd trained herself not to think about that.
