The candles in Melucia's chambers burned shorter than they normally did, the flames unflinching and stationary—too compliant, too, as if they were trying to mimic the quietness she had assumed. She stood at the window, arms folded around her middle, observing the horizon consume the sun in big, bleeding strokes of color.

Ezra had not come back by evening.

Once more.

He had been disappearing more and more, always for the same reason: strategy meetings with outer guards, sweeps of defense, ...