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Aftermath was not applause.
It was meetings. It was Morr posting extra watches on Bram's door without being asked. It was Orrin sitting in the guest room with his coat still on, staring at Bram as if measuring a stranger he loved. It was Tilda bursting into the herb garden shed where Yarrow had stashed her and saying, "You signed what?" loud enough to startle a cat.
It was Elowen, alone with Bram in the chapel vault that night, looking older than twenty-seven.
"You did well," she said. "Do not expect gratitude from the kingdom. Kingdoms thank people by needing them harder."
Bram sat on the same chair as before. His writing hand still smelled faintly of ink. "Vaunt will not let this rest."
"No." Elowen poured wine this time, not water, and drank as if it were medicine. "He will send letters. He will bribe council votes. He will look for proof that Mara committed worse crimes than refusal—sabotage, theft of eggs, conspiracy with border clans. Some of those accusations may even be half true. Mara was not a saint. She was a woman who broke locks when locked doors were killing things she loved."
"Did she steal eggs?" Bram asked, because he needed his mother to remain a person, not a banner.
Elowen's mouth twitched. "She relocated two eggs from a forced clutch before the Compact's first draft. They hatched in the wild. Yarrow helped. If Vaunt proves it, Yarrow hangs beside Mara's memory. So we will not help him prove it."
Bram rubbed his eyes. "You used me."
"Yes."
"You also kept the collar off."
"Yes."
He looked at her properly—the crown braid slightly loosened now, the silver at her neckline dull in vault light, the exhaustion around her eyes. "What do you want from me in the months ahead? Not the speech. The real work."