He sits in his office and wonders why she tarries.
Her brother calls for her, summons her beyond Cair Andros and yet she lingers in the Houses, the same houses she had begged him leave from.
He pictures her in his mind, a blooming lily, wilting in its prime. Skin sickly pale, grey eyes haunted, golden hair limp and lusterless.
She is fading.
He knows in his heart she will not last long. And he will lose her, a precious thing that was never truly his.
He wonders that the king called her back from the Darkness but left her incomplete.
She is a sad thing, moved from one cage to another, being broken by her own despair every day.
And if he were to free her? Give her leave and bid her farewell…He sees her like a wild bird, freed from its cage only to fall prey to the wilderness outside. ' My eyes see you wounded still.'
Yet he could lie for her, declare her healed, and watch her go. To look upon the king with longing from afar, to be imprisoned by her own kin…to die?
His thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door.
The Warden calls for him.
Perhaps he was pondered too long.