...Vaelor ...
The bond had been stable for nineteen days.
He knew the exact number because he had been counting the way you counted something you needed to track but didn't fully understand aware of it constantly, running the same inventory each morning when he woke: alive, present, somewhere the bond had decided was safe enough to go quiet about.
He had never felt the bond do this. She wasn't distant in the way she'd been distant when something had been pressing on the connection from outside that had a different quality, compressed and resistant, like a current being held back by force. This was different. This was settled.
Settled did not mean reachable. That was the part making him genuinely difficult to be in a room with.
He was in the war council chamber when Maren arrived and set a document down in front of him without a word. He picked it up and read it. He set it back down. He stood up and everyone at the table found other things to look at with great focus and care.
