Morning came cold and clear over Morgain Castle, the peaks cutting through a pale sky with cloud lying far below the mountain. By the time Trafalgar left his room the castle had been awake for hours, and all of its noise ran in one direction.
Servants went down the levels with garment cases and sealed luggage. Guards checked names at the stairwells, messengers crossed between wings, and the travelling members of the family had put off their ordinary clothes for the formal colours House Morgain wore in front of others.
Trafalgar had dressed plainly beside them, dark and sparing with the silver. He was crossing one of the inner galleries when Verena came into it ahead of him, out of the corridor that led toward the section where Rivena was being kept under restriction.
She was the girl's mother, and nothing that had happened inside the family altered that. Their eyes met briefly as they closed the distance.
"Trafalgar."
"Verena."
