LUCIAN
The scrape of chairs on the stone floor echoes as the council meeting breaks apart. Papers shuffle, voices drop into low conversations, and the elders file out in their usual slow trickle.
I don’t move. My eyes follow Darian as he gathers the last of his notes, his movements clipped and efficient. He hasn’t looked at me once the entire meeting, not really. Just quick glances when necessary, like I’m another one of the elders instead of his brother.
If there’s anyone Darian has never been able to put up an act for, it’s me.
That alone tells me something’s off. Darian is many things, rigid, guarded, and annoyingly duty-bound, but when something bothers him, it leaks out in the smallest ways. And right now, it’s written in the tight line of his jaw and the way his answers have been
