The knock came without warning.
Elara didn't look up right away. She had learned, over the years, to treat interruptions like clues. The sound of a knock could tell you a lot — how confident someone was, whether they were alone, whether they were nervous. This knock was confident. Two people, she guessed. They'd knocked at almost exactly the same time, the way people do when they've spent so long working together that they've stopped noticing they move in sync.
She put down her pen and looked up as the door opened.
Mahir and Ken.
She had been expecting them — not today specifically, but soon. She had known it was coming the moment she started tearing apart the palace's old, comfortable arrangements. The beast knights weren't stupid. They'd been watching her, same as everyone else, all of them asking the same silent question: *What exactly is she, and what is she going to do with us?*
