KAELRITH
I had been in Ashfen for six days, and in six days, I had held my daughter twice, eaten on a corridor floor, and watched my brother receive the founding compact's formal acknowledgment of what he had always been and stood at the edge of a gathering that was the most significant thing I had witnessed in six years of Alpha authority. I had not been asked to do anything, and I had not offered to do anything, and the not offering had been correct, and I was beginning to understand that knowing it was correct was not the same as knowing how long the correct call could last before it required revision.
The training ground was empty at this hour.
I went there before the pack house woke the way I had been going there since I arrived — not to train, simply to move through a space that h
