"You took my watch," Lucen said.
"I took a shift," she corrected. "You can have the next. Vorath is in a mood about adjectives. Do not call him majestic. He hates it."
From within, Vorath's voice rolled: "I can hear you decorating me with warnings."
"Good," Brynna called back. "Stay informed."
Lucen sat beside her. The arched ceiling gathered what light remained. For a while they listened to the dragon breathe, to distant kitchen sounds filtering down through stone like rumors of a safer life.
"In the corridor," Lucen said quietly, "when you asked what that was, and said we must go—I shook my head because I was terrified of becoming my uncle. Men who leave doors shut and call it prudence. I still do not know if refusing to flee was courage or another kind of vanity."
Brynna's needle paused. "It was both. That is why I stayed angry. Vanity that saves a sister is still vanity that did not ask me first. We are teaching it manners. Manners are not absolution."
"No," he agreed.
She handed him the cloak. The stitches were uneven, strong. "Wear the evidence," she said. "People like us forget pain when cloth is replaced too quickly."
He put it on. The weight settled familiar and altered. At his left hip the sword remained sheathed. In the chamber, Vorath lifted his head once, eyes glowing, not aggressive now—attentive, as at the first waking, but with the memory of a season already between them and that first stare.
"Door remains open," Vorath said.
"Decision remains held," Lucen answered.
Brynna rose, brushed stone dust from her velvet, and looked down the corridor the way they had come on the night of dread—torches, arches, rough walls, the long walk toward iron studs and blue light and consequences. "Come up for supper after your watch," she said to Lucen. "Shared table. No speeches. Bring the log."
"I will," he said.
She left him with the dragon and the doors and the work.