Back in the citadel, the temperature was noticeably cooler. The stone walls had already started pulling the late-afternoon heat out of the air, and Beorn felt it change before he reached the first corridor.
The sounds in the kitchen soon came to his ears.
The noise had a familiar volume to it. Too many young people in one room after the evening meal, too much energy, and nobody caring about being too loud anymore. Voices overlapped in layers, someone had clearly started a discussion that had collapsed into laughter halfway through.
A sharp crack suggested a ceramic bowl hitting the floor, followed immediately by multiple people reacting at once. Over all of it came Aestrith's voice, flat, completely drained of patience.
She repeated one instruction she had almost certainly already given multiple times, at exactly the same volume and in exactly the same tone.
