The peace, hard-won and tender, was a fragile vessel. Aethelburg held it carefully, learning its new weight and balance. The city was no longer a fortress, but neither was it the open, naive garden it had once been. It was something in between: a walled garden, perhaps, where the walls were not to keep others out, but to define the sacred space within. The scars on the stone were not hidden; they were tended, like the raised bark of an ancient tree, a record of survival.
The rhythm of life settled into a new pattern. Mornings began not with the grim recitation of fact, but with a moment of quiet acknowledgement. People would step outside, feel the sun or the rain on their skin, and simply note it. *The air is cool today. The light is sharp.* It was a practice of presence, a way to anchor themselves in a reality no longer distorted by static or siege.
