The room went quiet first.
Not the sharp silence of something wrong, just that particular stillness that happens when a space reorganizes itself around a new presence.
Aelara was standing near the window with a cup of cold tea in her hand, watching the courtyard below, when she heard the shift. The low conversations around her trailing off. The sound of boots stopping somewhere behind her.
She turned.Maren stood in the doorway of the receiving hall, her travel cloak still on, one hand braced against the frame. The dust on her boots said she had ridden hard. The set of her shoulders said she had not decided yet whether she was staying.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Aelara knew the room was watching. She could feel it in the way people suddenly found reasons to look at their hands, at the window, anywhere but at the two of them.
Three months was long enough for people to have formed opinions about what had happened. Long enough for the story to have gotten comfortable.
