Eara's POV
Several days passed.
The investigation continued. Lena stayed in her room. I went to council meetings and signed papers and made decisions and did not visit her. The days blurred together, one after another, the same routine, the same weight, the same ache I would not name.
Then they told me my chambers were secure.
The guards had finished their search. The corridors had been checked and rechecked. The locks had been changed. Everything was as it should be. I could return.
I walked back into my rooms that evening and felt nothing. The walls were the same. The furniture was the same. The bed was made, the windows closed, the fire laid but not lit. Everything in its place. Everything ordinary.
But it was not my room anymore. Not really. Someone had been in here. Someone had left blood on my pillow and a threat on my bed. The space itself felt different now, smaller somehow, the walls closer, the shadows deeper.
I pushed the feeling down. I had work to do.
