Nobody slept much after Rhea's news.
The twins were the exception. Caelum had looked at the situation, asked three precise questions, received three precise answers, and then announced he was going to sleep because he was not useful to anyone exhausted.
Lyra had followed him ten minutes later with the air of someone who had already processed the thing and was done with it for the night. They were asleep within the hour.
Aelara had watched them go and felt something sit in her chest that was complicated. Pride, partly. Worry underneath it, always. And something that was almost envy, the very specific kind you felt for people who had learned to rest when rest was available instead of lying awake running the same calculations until morning.
She had not learned that yet.
