Ravenna
I did not spill my coffee. I did not flinch or pull back or look at Ryder. I looked at Kate across the fruit bowl and the coffee cups and the morning light coming through the window, and I held her gaze, and I kept my face completely still.
Underneath the table, my free hand pressed hard into my thigh and stayed there.
Ryder had gone very still beside her. He was watching me now.
I set my cup down carefully. I looked at it for exactly one second. Then I looked back at Kate and said, quiet and even:
"After breakfast. Walk with me."
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Valkor POV
Elder Maren did not sit until I asked her twice.
She was not a woman who waited for permission. In forty years of advising the Ravenwood line, she had walked into rooms full of Alpha Kings and war councils and weapons merchan
