Sophia's POV

I rode out at dawn.

Not dramatically — there was no dramatic departure available to me, not with Kael at the east gate with the specific expression of a man who knows more than he is saying and has decided that his role is simply to make sure the horse is properly prepared and the gate is open and the Queen returns safely. He looked at me as I mounted, and I looked at him, and something passed between us in the look that was twenty years of accumulated understanding — all the ...