The study was quiet, the fire burning low in the hearth. Damian sat at his desk, staring at the papers before him without seeing them. His quill had dried hours ago, the ink a faint stain on the parchment where he'd stopped mid-word and never resumed.Lucian stood in the doorway, watching.He knew that stillness. He'd seen it before, in the early days after Arabella vanished, in the long nights after the cave, in the moments when Damian's mind slipped away from the present and into the past.Thinking about what could have happened. What should have happened. What he had no power to change.Lucian cleared his throat."The timber from Valdris is being transported directly to Redholt," he said. "The roads are holding. It should arrive within the week."Damian hummed in response. A sound that wasn't quite acknowledgment, wasn't quite dismissal. Just... sound.Lucian moved to the window.The snow had thinned enough to see the gardens below, the bare branches of the trees, the stone paths th
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