Kaelen stood in the center of the council antechamber with his remaining hand curled into a loose fist at his side. The elf sat before him in a high-backed chair of dark wood and silver inlay, posture perfect, expression unreadable. Her silver hair fell in a smooth curtain over one shoulder. The air between them felt heavier than the stone walls.
He had answered the summons. That was the extent of what he understood. No one had explained the purpose. No one had told him what was expected. He opened his mouth once, then closed it again. He was not certain she even wanted him to speak. The silence stretched long enough that speaking first felt like a mistake.
Anxiety sat low in his gut, cold and familiar. His life had been a sequence of losses and failures for longer than he cared to measure.
The guild was gone. His arm was gone. Whatever purpose he had once carried had been buried under the weight of survival.
