The upper levels of Blackstone were everything the lower ones weren’t.
Light, for one thing. Real light — high windows that didn’t mock their own height, corridors wide enough to carry the memory of grandeur, stone that had been chosen for beauty as well as strength. She walked beside Kael through the ascending levels and she could feel the kingdom responding to her presence the way she’d felt everything respond since the ruins — that subtle shift, like a held breath slowly releasing.
The guards they passed did not kneel.
But every one of them became very still as she walked by, and she noticed, and Kael noticed her noticing, and neither of them commented on it.
They were heading to his war room. She had suggested it — neutral enough for the council to accept, authoritative enough to s
