She made it forty minutes. Forty minutes of walking, of corridors, of controlled breathing, of keeping her spine straight and her face empty and her tears behind her eyes where they belonged. Then she found a room with no one in it and stopped pretending.
It overlooked the dragon yard from three stories up, and Serena had chosen it because it had no chairs, no hearth, and no reason for anyone to look for her here.
Below, the dragons moved through their afternoon routines. Velkaris was stretched across the far end of the yard, his gold scales catching the late sun. Two juvenile dragons were sparring near the eastern wall, their handlers keeping a safe distance. Onyx was somewhere down there too, probably terrorizing a handler who had drawn the short straw.
She stood at the window with her arms wrapped around herself, watching the yard without seeing it.
