Elara's News

Sophia's POV

She told me on a Thursday.

She came to me in the study after the council session, in the hour I kept clear of formal obligations. She knocked, which she did not usually do — Elara moved through the spaces of my life with the easy, rightful presence of someone who had earned the right not to knock years ago. The knock told me the conversation was going to be different.

"Come in," I said.

She came in and sat across from me with the expression of a woman who has ...