Dark, warm, present — the specific soft warmth of a young woman at full natural expression, the Void Return bloodline saturation visible in the density and health of everything, the soft, dark hair that had never been trimmed for anyone's aesthetic because Wren had never expected anyone to be looking.
She looked at him with the amber eyes and the expression of someone who is beyond the vocabulary she arrived with and is waiting for new vocabulary to develop.
He sat back.
He pulled them both to him — one smooth, dual-handed motion, the qi at his palms carrying the guiding force that brought Sora to his left and Wren to his right with the same unhurried, royal geometry of a man arranging things at his own pace in his own room.
Sora arrived against his left side with the compressed, warrior-tense quality of someone seated somewhere they did not choose to sit.
