The second week of preparation settled over me like a second skin—unfamiliar at first, then gradually harder to imagine living without.
Every morning I reported to Elder Mira for another dense, unforgiving session. Pack law. Bloodline histories. The political weight of even small public gestures. She corrected my posture, my phrasing, the way I held eye contact when speaking about the territory. Once, when I apologized for forgetting the name of a minor allied family, she fixed me with a look sharp enough to cut.
“Do not apologize for learning,” she said. “Apologize only if you stop. Again.”
I repeated the names until they stayed.
Tristan met me after every session. Sometimes he waited in the car. Sometimes he leaned against the stone wall outside the administration building with his h
