She went back to the eastern wing that evening and found it exactly as she had left it.
Plain bed. Single candle. Mountain in the window. The room had none of the Luna Quarters' cultivated perfection, none of its silent demands, none of the specific atmosphere of a space that expected its occupant to be a particular thing. It was simply a room. Four walls and a window and enough space to breathe.
She had not returned to the Luna Quarters.
She did not intend to.
She sat on the bed and let the day settle through her. The assembly. The fracture. Seraphine standing with her document folder and her pale, resolved face. Alaric at the head of the table saying what Elowen has said is accurate into a room full of people who had built their understanding of this pack's future on the assumption t
