Eris turned her head then, her amber eyes soft with a strange, dark sadness... the look of a woman who carried a weight she wanted to share but knew would crush him if she dropped it too soon.
She didn't say a word. She just pressed her forehead against the hollow of his neck and stayed there until the candle went out.
The next morning, the sun didn't bring any real light into the imperial study. The sky outside the high windows remained that dull, dark purple, the long black seam at the horizon looking wider than it had the night before.
Soren sat behind his wide oak desk, his ledger open but his pen dry. Aldwin occupied the heavy leather chair by the window, his glasses sitting low on his nose as he turned the brittle pages of an old book on fire seals.
It was the same way they had sat a hundred times before, two men trying to find a door in a stone wall that had been built without any seams.
A sharp knock rattled the heavy door.
"Come in," Soren said.
