The territory was quiet, and that was unusual for this hour.
Alistair sat at the long oak table in what had been called the war room, even though no war had been fought in it for over a month, and there was a dispatch in front of him that he had already read twice.
Elara had gone to bed hours ago, and Silas was somewhere along the perimeter, in one of those positions where the Characteristic refused to give Alistair any sense of his location, no matter how hard he reached for it.
However, Due was still working.
It was not urgent work, but more the kind he did out of habit, his pen moving in the steady rhythm of a man transcribing a section of the civic appendix that he had already drafted in his head days ago.
Alistair, on the other hand, was doing nothing at all, which was something he had not allowed himself in months, and the cup of tea sitting in front of him had gone cold while he sat with it.
