Elara's POV
The waiting was the worst part.
Corvus had left an hour ago. Maybe two. I had lost track of time. I sat in my chambers, in the chair by the window, my hands folded in my lap, my eyes on the door. I did not read. I did not write. I did not do anything except sit and wait for her to come back.
The room felt wrong without her. It had felt wrong for days.
I had missed her. Quietly, persistently, the way you miss something that was always there and is suddenly not. The way you miss a sound you did not know you were listening for until it stops.
And now she was coming back.
I did not know how I knew. Corvus had not sent word. No one had come to tell me. But I knew. I could feel it, the way you feel the shift in the air before a storm breaks. Something was ending. Something was returning.
I sat in the chair by the window and I waited.
The knock came at last. Not the sharp, official knock of a guard or a messenger. Something softer. Something familiar.
