Dinner was around the fire at the second waypoint and Lyra sat across from Vaelor.
She did not do this by accident. She had been sitting next to Aelara at meals since the waypoint courtyard, the position she preferred for various reasons, but tonight she crossed to the other side and sat across from him with her food in her lap and the fire between them.
He saw her do it. He registered the deliberateness of it and said nothing.
She looked at him.
Not the quick reading-glance she gave most people, where she checked in and moved on. She looked at him the way she looked at things she was studying. Full attention.
The truth-sense working, which he could feel, which had a specific quality like being seen from a direction you were not expecting. Most people shifted when she did this. He did not shift. He held it and he waited and he let her look.
She looked for a long time.
