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One hour later, the world had returned to pretending it was normal.
The small house behind the shop held a quiet warmth that was not from the forge. The bed creaked sometimes when the old building remembered it had joints. The curtain breathed with the breeze from the cracked window. Somewhere outside, the capital carried on with its honest noises: cart wheels, distant arguing, a vendor yelling about pears like pears were a religion.
John lay on his back and stared at the ceiling beams as if they had answers carved into them. His hair was a mess. His shirt was somewhere on the floor, betrayed by gravity and bad decisions. Between him and the edge of the bed, Orna was sprawled with the careless confidence of someone who never once apologized for taking space. Edda lay on her side, head propped by her hand, eyes half-lidded in the satisfied way predators look when the hunt has been… educational.
