She felt him settle next to her, mirroring her stance and leaning against the banister. Behind them, somber chatter filled the air as the rest of the council dispersed. Everyone was relieved, but tired. She was tired.
"And just like that," he sighed, "the wars over." It was somewhere between a statement and a question.
"So is summer," she looked out across the Royal Forest. The leaves hadn't started turning yet, but she could hear the people preparing all around them.
Thayet's voice could be heard from within the chambers; too quiet to make out the words but the low, clear cadence was unmistakable. A call for her King to return to her and their children, to be sure. So long fighting made such moments all the more precious. Alanna would be riding out in the morning to return to her own family, she knew. She'd agreed to have dinner with the Champion and Myles later in the evening. Funny that so many farewells followed the war.
"What now?" She asked, speaking to no one. But he was there. He was always there when she needed him, if not always when she wanted him. Their time in the Realms had changed something; a shift in how they stood in relation to one another. The space between them felt different —filled with something she couldn't place. Like the heat she saw in his eyes. Something charged and dangerous, and slippery—gone before she could identify it but still there, just beneath the surface.
Their time in the Realms had changed something, but she found herself wondering if it had changed them enough? Were there still rises to conquer? Still a horizon to chase?
Was it just the stirring of a breeze before the changing of a season?
"Still time before dinner," he was fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. "We have some time before we have to head down."
"No, I mean—"she hesitated. How could she chase a horizon when she didn't know where due north was? Sunny day, dark of night; either way, there were no stars to guide her…
"Oh," his voice was soft. She could practically hear him thinking. The breeze picked up and she watched a leaf, dried and yellowed, skitter across the garden patio below. So it had started after all…
He sighed, "we go on as we did before, I suppose."
She didn't respond and the hesitance in his voice was obvious when he next spoke. "We've been given leave. We could go home, to the tower," his hand moved towards hers—so slight she wouldn't have seen it had she not been looking—but he didn't touch her.
She sighed, "let's leave soon." She pushed away from the banister, retreating through the gardens below.