Morning arrived in Vaelthorn the way it always did reluctantly.
The light that came through the suite's curtains was the same deep violet-grey as the light that had been there when she'd fallen asleep, differentiated from night only by a fractional warming at its edges, the sky's concession to the concept of dawn without any genuine commitment to it.
She had learned in six days that Vaelthorn's light did not change so much as it shifted registers from the dark of active night to the dark of acknowledged morning, with a quality of difference that required attention to detect.
She detected it.
She was awakened before him.
This surprised her,she was a light sleeper by necessity, had been since childhood, the kind of wakefulness that lived close to the surface even in deep sleep and surf
