"The river," Elara said.
"Good choice," he said, and went back to his food.
---
Caius woke at noon and was functional within minutes, which was a quality she had noted about him — he came back to full operational capacity quickly, no gradual surfacing. He looked at the room, assessed what had changed since he'd fallen asleep, and came to sit near her.
"I heard the sounds this morning," he said. "Before I slept."
"Yes," she said.
"The palace."
"Yes."
He was quiet for a moment.
"The sealed record," he said. "The bloodline claim." He looked at his hands. "I've been thinking about what you said. About making sure the decision comes from what I actually want."
"Yes," she said.
"I don't know what I want yet," he said. "I thought I would by now. I thought—" He stopped. "I thought knowing what I was would make it obvious. What to do with it. But it just made the question larger."
"That's accurate," she said.
"You're not going to tell me the question gets smaller," he said.
