I saw him the next morning. Not properly — not the way you see someone when they want to be seen. More like catching movement at the edge of your vision and turning to find something already still. Like he'd been mid-motion and just decided not to be anymore the second I looked.
He was at the far end of the kitchen when I came down for coffee.
Tall. Broader than Riven, differently built than Kael — not the kind of size that announces itself, the kind that just is, solid and settled the way old trees are solid. Dark hair that looked like he'd run his hands through it roughly and then stopped caring. He was standing at the counter with a glass of water and he wasn't drinking it, just holding it, staring out the window at the grey morning like the window had done something to personally offend him.
He didn't turn around when I walked in.
