After the Meeting.
The room still smelled faintly of incense and old parchment, a stale, heavy air that clung to her clothes even after Tess shoved open the grand wooden doors.
The elders' words — or rather, their quiet murmurs, their darting eyes, their deliberate pauses whenever she spoke — followed her out like smoke.
She didn't even slam the door; she barged through it, letting it swing back on its own. The echo down the corridor was enough to make a few passing Chewletes glance her way before pretending they hadn't.
Behind her, footsteps. Steady. Unhurried. Measured. She didn't need to turn to know who it was.
"Persistent much?" she muttered under her breath.
When she finally glanced over her shoulder, her gaze was flat, dull — not anger, not sadness, just an exhausted emptiness.
