She was up before him.
This was not unusual. She had always been an early riser, even in the years when there had been nothing good waiting for her in the mornings, even in the borrowed rooms and the difficult years, her body had pulled her out of sleep before the light came and she had learned to stop fighting it and use the quiet instead.
Now the quiet was different.
Now the quiet had a quality she had not known it could have, warm and unhurried, the specific feeling of a morning that belonged to her entirely, no threat in it, no thing waiting to be managed. Just the early grey light coming through the window and the sound of the Citadel not yet awake and the coffee she made in the kitchen alone, the way she liked to make it, slowly, without anyone needing anything from her yet.
She took her cup to the chair by the window.
