Rhea found her in the small courtyard.
It was early. The kind of early that belonged to people who had spent years not sleeping much, the grey light just starting to turn gold at the edges, the Citadel quiet in the way it was only quiet at this hour, before the day picked it up and carried it forward.
Aelara was sitting on the low wall with a cup of tea she had not started drinking yet. She looked up when she heard the footsteps and she knew, before Rhea said anything, what this was. She had known it was coming for a few days. Maybe longer than that. Maybe she had known it since the day the tribunal finding came through and the work that had needed Rhea, specifically, in the specific way it had needed her, started to change shape into something else.
Rhea sat down on the wall beside her. Not close. The exact distance she always sat, near enough to be present, far enough to leave room.
For a while neither of them said anything.
Then Rhea said: "I'm going back."
