Kaelen's pov
Kaelen's POV
The words were flowing the way they always did. Specific. Measured. Rooted in the details of the day. The water channels. The grain that disappeared between the palace and the people. The petitions that went nowhere. The lords dragged out of the warehouse this morning, which the crowd already knew about and which landed exactly the way I intended it to.
I was in full flow. The room was with me. This was the part I was good at.
And then I saw her.
She was near the middle of the crowd. Hood forward, head slightly down, doing everything right. There was nothing obvious about her, nothing that should have pulled my eye to her specifically among this many people. Plain dress. Plain cloak. No jewelry, no mark of rank, nothing that would make anyone look twice. She looked like everyone else. She looked like no one.
But I knew. I knew the woman I had held in my hands, made love too.
