Lunch passed with a quiet ease, the kind that settled naturally when there was no urgency pressing at their backs. The dining hall was calmer than it had been at dinner, sunlight filtering through tall windows and painting pale bands across the polished floor. Luke ate more out of habit than hunger, listening as Ilyrana casually outlined what usually followed midday: craftwork, council observation, meditation beneath the boughs, or assisting with the care of the younger elves. All things meaningful in their own right, yet none of them quite stirred anything in him.
It wasn't that Luke found them dull. If anything, they felt too still. Too inward. He had been walking through Hematheas for days now, watching, listening, absorbing, but there was still a sense that he was standing at the edge of something he hadn't stepped into yet.
Master Deylin noticed.
