LUCIAN
I walked fast without urgency.
The guard who had delivered the report fell into step behind me without being asked, maintaining the particular distance that people maintained when they had delivered bad news and weren't sure if they were still needed or should quietly disappear.
But I idn't dismiss him neither did i acknowledge his presence.
The corridor stretched ahead of me and I moved through it with my hands loose at my sides and my expression exactly as it always was and my mind running three steps ahead of my feet the way it always did when something required immediate management.
Except something was wrong not with the report. Not with the information the guard had delivered. Something else. Something that had nothing to do with strategy or territory or the careful calculations I ran automatically in situations like this.
It was in my chest.
