It happened in stages. The first stage was recognition — the small lift of the eyebrows that meant her eyes had identified the hand and the period and the hierarchical mark in the upper corner of the parchment. The second stage was comprehension — a flatness across the mouth as the meaning of the text registered. The third stage was something I did not have a name for. Her shoulders did not move. Her hands stayed folded. But the chapel girl underneath had stopped breathing for one full beat, and I could feel the catch through the bond Liora had threaded between us six weeks ago, faint but present.
She began to read.
Her voice was steady. Slightly lower than her interview voice. She translated as she read, the way a senior Saintess could, converting the old liturgical script into Imperial common in real time without breaking the cadence of the original.
