We rode back in the dark.
Not late — the meeting had ended before sunset but the waystation was two hours north and the return journey put us into the territory after nightfall, the ward lines registering our crossing with the specific warmth of a structure that knew its frequencies and was glad to have them back.
I rode beside Kael.
Seren was behind us — she'd spent the last hour of the meeting in deep conversation with Eran about procedural precedent and had emerged with six pages of new notes and the specific satisfaction of someone who had found an intellectual equal and was already planning the next conversation.
The forest moved around us in the dark.
I'd been quiet since we left the waystation. Not processing-quiet — the meeting had settled rather than complicated, the specific
