Ryder's POV
The council chambers were empty by the time I returned to them that night. The long table still had seven chairs around it. The eighth, my father's, sat at the head with its back to the windows. I had been sitting in council meetings in this room since I was fourteen years old. I had never once sat in that chair.
My father found me there an hour later, standing at the window with my hands behind my back, looking at nothing in particular.
"You are thinking," he said.
"I am always thinking."
"You are thinking loudly." He came around the table and stood beside me without demanding I turn around. "What is it."
I did not answer immediately. Outside, the training yard was dark. The torches along the eastern wall threw long shadows across the stones. Somewhere in the hall, someo
