She arrived differently this time.
Not in the luggage — the luggage had been settled for over a year, the east tower room hers, Cael's schedule noting her visits with the same consistency he noted committee sessions.
Different in the way she moved through the Hold's entrance court.
Nara noticed it from the gate before she could name it. Serin walked in like someone who lived there. Not visiting — inhabiting. The same shift that had happened in Nara's own relationship to the Hold, the transition from approach to presence, but it had happened in Serin quietly, over many visits, and Nara was only now seeing the completed version of it.
She came through the entrance court.
She looked at the Hold.
She didn't read it the way you read a place you're returning to. She moved through it the wa
