By the following morning, the weakness in Eris's limbs had settled into a dull, persistent fatigue, but her mind had cleared completely. She sat near the large glass balcony doors, wrapped in a thick wool shawl, watching the sunlight play across the stone floor.
She began to notice the small, deliberate cracks in the story she had been handed.
Soren spent hours at her side, bringing her broth, checking her hands, and speaking gently about small, unimportant matters.
But his attention was overly sharp, desperate.. the intense focus of a man who needed to fix something small within his sight because he was entirely powerless to fix the ruin beyond the door.
He barely ate, his eyes were perpetually bloodshot, and whenever a guard stepped into the room to deliver a folded parchment, Soren's entire body tensed until he read the contents.
