Kael
By the time I forced myself to go to Thoren’s office, I had done everything I could to make myself appear as though I was functioning.
I had showered. Dressed. Even taken time with the simple mechanics of presentation, as if buttoning a shirt correctly and combing damp hair into place could disguise the fact that I felt like a man walking around with part of himself missing.
It fooled no one.
Least of all me.
Sleep had not touched me. I doubted it could have. The exhaustion in my body had moved beyond ordinary fatigue into something heavier, something that sat in the bones and behind the eyes and made even breathing feel deliberate. I carried it with me down the corridor, aware of the way people glanced up as I passed and then quickly away again, as if they sensed enough not to
