[SERA — POV]
The Noctis quarter at seven in the morning was a different animal than during the day.
She'd been in the Noctis quarter before—brief incursions, intelligence operations, twice in pursuit of specific targets. Never this calmly. Never walking alongside the general of its forces in her own civilian clothes, through streets that were quieter at this hour but never quite dark, the nighttime activity tapering toward morning but not gone.
Kael was beside her. Not touching—there was a careful few inches of space between them that was its own kind of awareness—and he was watching the street with the easy attention of someone in home territory, noting what she was noting but through a different lens.
She thought: six days ago I had my blade at his throat.
She thought: that's a shor
