She arrived on a Wednesday, eleven months after leaving.
No announcement — she'd told Cole the approximate return date, and Cole had told no one, the way he kept certain things until the right moment, because not everything needed ceremony to matter.
Sera was in the training ring when the bond shifted, the specific warmth of someone returning to its full strength from the reduced register of long-distance. She stopped mid-sequence, feeling Tavri cross the compound's outer boundary, the bond's network registering the return the way it always registered significant arrivals — not dramatically, just as a warmth brightening, a thread reconnecting at its full strength.
She waited until she heard the gate.
Then she walked to meet her.
Tavri looked like eleven months of that work. Not damage
