LYSSARA
The grey predawn over Ashfen's courtyard. Not dawn, not night. The specific in-between before the world commits to the next version of itself.
I had been standing in that in-between since the morning I woke on a cold floor eleven months ago and decided to get up anyway.
I understood now that it had been a preparation. That the preparation was complete. That which came after the grey predawn light was not unknown because I had been building it for eleven months, and it was mine.
The courtyard had been arranged before I arrived.
Kaevra's efficiency. The seven territory representatives positioned in the specific order the founding compact required, not by rank in the conventional sense but by founding era designation, the original order of the territories' pledges, unchanged sinc
