Frostfall in Full Summer
The summer solstice was the longest day of the year in the north and Frostfall Citadel, which had been designed for winter, looked somehow uncertain in the prolonged gold light, as though the stone walls and the eternal wind and the silverwood forest had all prepared themselves for a season that was not this one and were managing summer on patience rather than design.
Elowen found this charming.
She had found unexpected things charming for months, which was itself a symptom of something she was happy to have. The ability to find charm in what was simply present rather than requiring it to be constructed or earned or arrived at through deliberate effort. It was a low-grade and persistent happiness, not dramatic, not the overwhelming restored joy of the naming cer
