He was up before the light.
That was not unusual. He had slept in four-hour intervals for so many years that his body had stopped offering him more than that without a specific kind of exhaustion to justify it, and last night had not been that kind. He had lain still long enough to be certain Aelara was properly asleep, the deep even breathing of someone who had given a day everything she had, and then he had gotten up carefully and taken his device and his coffee to the room down the hall that had been functioning as a workspace.
The city outside was in the particular grey of early morning, not dark anymore, not light yet, the hour that belonged to no one in particular.
He called Aldric at six fifteen.
Aldric picked up on the first ring. "I was waiting," he said, which meant he had been up earlier than Vaelor, which was its own kind of information.
"Tell me what you know," Vaelor said.
