POV: Ayla

The week after the ceremony is quieter than any week since the seal broke.

Not empty. Quieter. The regional desks still send updates. The recovery track for the open files continues. Ryker’s restricted duty list shortens by inches. The compound learns how to occupy ordinary hours without treating them as a lull between alarms. In the middle of that quieter stretch, the remaining names from the beginning of the path receive their endings.

Finn comes to the east sitting room in the late morning with a formal notice from the transitional council still overseeing the old Dravenmoor holdings. He stands until I tell him to sit, the old...