NEVA POV
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The compound gathered for dinner the night before, the full round table configuration once more, and I looked around at everyone present and felt the specific enormity of what tomorrow would hold settle into something I could actually carry rather than something that threatened to overwhelm me.
Caius and Lera had arrived that afternoon with Elias, four days old and sleeping through most of the noise with the specific talent newborns had for ignoring chaos they weren't yet equipped to process. Bena was there too, having come for her son's presence at the ceremony and staying, at my invitation, for the whole of it.
Holt sat beside Maren Ashcroft, the two of them quiet together in the specific comfortable way of people who had found their way back to something after fifteen y
