(Alash Vortex POV)
For the first time in five days, Halden woke up to something other than an emergency.
From the infirmary step I could hear it before I could see it. Boots crossed the courtyard stones, unhurried ones. A horse objected to a girth. Somebody was counting crates aloud and losing his place, and somebody else was telling him where he had lost it.
The kitchen smoke went straight up into a pale sky. By the east gate, the escort's wagons stood in a line with their canvas half on, like people who have dressed for a journey and not yet decided to leave.
It was almost ordinary. I had forgotten how much I liked ordinary.
Sorel had looked at my chest before breakfast, and Valerian after it, and between them they had given me back my stairs, on condition that I took them like an old man.
I took the infirmary step like an old man too. Then I sat down on it with Dream Haven across my knees and watched a soldier load a crate of Sorel's bandages into the wrong wagon.
