It started with nothing identifiable.
Not an argument. Not a crisis. Not even a conversation that went wrong. Just a Tuesday where the texture between them was different, the way weather sometimes changed without any single thing causing it — the pressure shifting, the air doing something you couldn't point to until it had already changed how everything felt.
Darius had been in back-to-back territorial sessions for three days. Not unusual — the Ledger's expansion had created administrative weight that neither of them had fully anticipated, the practical consequence of building something that worked being that working things required management. He came home late each night and ate what was left and answered messages until eleven and came to bed already half-asleep.
Sera was fine with th
