Serah slept badly.
When Kai woke at dawn she was already outside the tent, sitting on the same log by the dead fire. Eyes open. Without having slept, perhaps, or having slept little.
Kai came out. He sat beside her.
Without asking anything.
After a while Serah spoke.
"I need to tell you something."
"Alright."
Serah looked at the dead fire.
"What Kaela told me yesterday."
Kai waited.
Serah told him everything.
The real banishment. The alpha of her generation knowing what she was. The lineage records. The pattern — not prophecy, pattern — of the primordial with moon blood responding to someone unclassified. The three previous events. Kaela knowing all of it for twelve hundred years without being able to tell her. Kaela's offer to run for alpha.
Kai listened without interrupting.
When Serah finished he said nothing for a long while.
Then he spoke.
"What do you want."
"I don't know yet."
"Alright." Kai. "When you know, tell me."
Serah looked at him.
