The moment Aelara saw him she forgot how to do the thing she had been doing for two years, which was be in the world without him in it.
She had been managing. She had been good at managing. She had been excellent, actually, at the specific skill of feeling through the bond that he was there and real and present and then going on with the practical requirements of the day as if the bond were a background thing rather than the thing that ran under everything. She had been doing that since the Temple. She had built a competency in it.
All of that was gone the moment he stepped out of the shadow.
