The voice was different. Not the Cruxius who'd given orders in hallways and dropped offers like change on a table.
This was something older and younger at the same time—something that had been filed away for a long time and was being said now not because it was strategic but because, for some reason, in this specific car on this specific morning, it was simply true.
"M-Master..." Darithi's voice was barely there. Her hands, steady always, were not quite steady.
She had carried her own hollowness for years—the inability to feel what people around her seemed to feel, the quiet guilt of existing beside someone who wanted something from her she simply didn't have. She had always assumed the fault was entirely hers.
She had not known he carried something too.
Thalia looked at him.
