"How do you ready for that," I said.
Maren answered before Corva could.
"You decide in advance that it's allowed," she said. "To feel it fully, in front of people who don't know you, because what you're saying matters more than whether they see you cry while you say it." She looked at Corva. "We've decided that. Both of us. Whatever happens in that room, we're not going to manage our faces for anyone's comfort."
I looked at them.
"That's the right decision," I said.
"We know," Corva said. "It took us sixty years and about a week of preparation to arrive at it, but we know."
---
Ryke found me at the counter that evening, going through the Elara Brief one more time — not because I needed to, I knew it completely, but because the ritual of reading it had become its own kind of steadyin
