I watch it happen and this time I believe it.
I wake early the next morning, before the light, before anything can reach me. I dress quickly and pause only once at the bassinets.
Empty. Cambra has already taken them. Saurin stands nearby.
"I will be back shortly," I say.
She nods.
The pools are empty the first time I go. The water takes the weight first, then everything else, the heat moving through me in a way that feels purposeful rather than incidental. I stay until I feel the difference and then I leave, returning before the children need me and before Colsar surfaces from wherever the day has already taken him.
It helps. More than the healer's hands had, more than rest alone. I decide to go back the following morning, earlier this time, the way the water had suggested might be worth trying.
The pools are not empty the second time.
I realize it as I move further in, the shift in the air subtle but present, like something already claimed. A man sits in the pool beside mine, separated by a low divide that gives him privacy without removing him entirely. One arm rests along the edge, the other submerged to the elbow, the skin above it bearing the marks of a healer that has not finished its work.
He looks up as I enter.
He is handsome, dark hair falling into his eyes, his smile easy in a way that does not feel practiced. There is something in him that reads as though he has seen too much of the world and chosen, anyway, to remain unbothered by it.
He inclines his head. "I am Kentan," he says. "The Sovereign's younger brother."
That is not what I expected. He is far younger than the Sovereign, the difference immediate now that I see it.
I nod once. "Asharin."
Recognition moves through his expression without surprise. "I thought so," he says, and does not shift after that. No added formality. No correction in tone.
"These are better," he says after a moment, glancing toward the water. "Less crowded." A brief pause. "Which is not many, but still more than you would like."
"Yes," I say.
He studies me a moment longer, then turns his head, giving me his profile. "Go ahead," he says. "I am not looking." A moment passes. "I do not wish for my dear nephew to gouge my eyes out."
The laugh leaves me before I can stop it. It feels unfamiliar. He lets out a quiet breath that carries the same quality and leans back, his attention drifting elsewhere.
I step down into the water. The heat moves through me quickly, easing the tension that has not fully left my body. I lower myself slowly, letting it work through the deeper ache that still lingers.
For a time neither of us speaks, and it holds easily.
"You were at the border," I say after a while.
He nods. "You were not," he replies.
"No."
He shifts slightly, the movement careful in a way that confirms what I already see. "They are pushing again," he says.
"The undead?"
"Yes."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough that I am here instead of there."
That tells me enough. "They did not breach."
