She glanced sideways at the youngest maid, who clutched her apron like it might shield her from what waited beyond the walls.
"Don't look so pale, Enara," Melion murmured.
"I'm not," the girl lied.
'She's shaking. Too young for this.'
The captain walking ahead, tall, bronze-haired, shield slung tight to his back, didn't speak. Didn't look back. Just kept walking, fast but measured.
Where, exactly, they were leading her, she hadn't asked.
Didn't need to.
She wasn't stupid.
They were evacuating her.
Not officially, of course. No one had said those words. Not with her rank. But she could hear it in how quiet the halls had gone. How fast they moved without sprinting. How the guards never let her out of arm's reach.
And how Eldrin hadn't come back down.
Not since flying skyward with a sword of flame in his hands.
'Idiot. Always the idiot when it mattered.'
She walked faster.
