Damien's POV
Rourke came to my study that evening.
He sat down without being asked, which was a specific departure from his usual approach and told me the conversation was one he had decided to have rather than one he was obligated to conduct. Rourke made those distinctions clearly and they were worth reading correctly.
He put both hands flat on the desk and looked at them for a moment.
"What she did today," he said. "In the council room."
"Yes."
He was quiet for a moment. Something was moving through his expression that he was not entirely managing. Rourke managed most things entirely. The ones he did not were the ones that had reached somewhere past the professional layer of him into the part underneath that had decided things mattered.
"She did not need to," he said. "You would h
