Atheron kept the campaign maps spread open across the desk, with pins marking every route his search parties walked in. Pulling them would make the losses easier to forget, and he refused that comfort while names waited beside the forest.
Tonight, Didi stood across that desk with her hands folded like a minister bracing for a tariff vote.
'She's rehearsing, and if I speak first she gets to choose which version I hear.'
He left the wine untouched and waited until her fingers quit worrying the seam of her sleeve.
"Tell me about the man who brought you home."
"Which part, Father?" she asked, tilting her head with the innocence she usually saved for petitioners.
"The part you would tell your father," he said, tapping the road between forest and capital, "before your ruler asks for it."
Her polish slipped, and something considerably more stubborn showed through the gap beneath it.
