[KAEL — POV]
She received him. That itself was information.
She received him in the formal reception room of her council chambers—not her private office, which he'd expected, but the formal room, which was beautiful the way all Noctis Court spaces were beautiful and felt about as warm as a museum. She was sitting when he entered, which was deliberate: the receiving posture, the person who waits rather than meets. Telling him: you came to me. I am unmoved.
He sat across from her and looked at her properly.
Five hundred years. He'd known her for most of his tenure as general—known her as an elder, as a political force, as someone whose intelligence advantages he'd accepted without questioning because she'd always been on the same side. He'd trusted her assessments. He'd brought her into
