He heard it coming around the corner.
Not loud. The person was not being loud about it, which meant they were not saying it for attention, they were saying it because they believed it and were comfortable saying it to the person next to them in a corridor they thought was empty. That was a different thing from performing. That was just what someone actually thought.
Caelum stopped walking before he turned the corner.
He listened.
Two voices. Both men. One of them he recognized as a mid-level administrative aide who had been with the Citadel for about twelve years based on the information Caelum had filed during his first week. The other he did not know by voice. They were talking about the upcoming formal announcement, the engagement, what it meant for the realm's structure going forward, the usual things people talked about in corridors when they thought nobody important was nearby.
Then the first man said something about Aelara.
