Sixty-One
Zaria was overwhelmed by the sheer number of staff River had assigned to them. Guards in crisp formation, stewards with ledgers tucked beneath their arms, porters who moved as if the world might end if a trunk was carried at the wrong angle. It was too much. Too many eyes. Too many hands. Too many people who could notice the wrong thing at the wrong time. So when River explained, almost casually, that he’d secured not a hotel, but a Dragon Lord’s holiday estate on the mainland, relief struck her so hard it nearly made her knees buckle. An estate was large enough to disappear inside. Large enough to breathe. Large enough, perhaps, to lie. The sky was still bruised with pre-dawn when River found her near the gangplank, where the ship waited with its belly open for crates and trunks.
- Writer
