November leaned forward. Her hands gripped the edge of the seat.
"It's beautiful, Rhaezon."
He said nothing. Davn glanced over at him. Rhaezon did not meet his eye.
The vehicle stopped in the main yard and November was out before Rhaezon could come around to open her door. She stood in the thin plateau air and took a breath, and he watched the altitude register in her expression.
"The air is thin,” she said.
"You'll adapt within a week."
"I've worked at altitude before. It's fine." She took another deliberate breath. Rolled her shoulders. Then her head turned east, toward the stable buildings, and something in her posture changed entirely.
She walked toward the stables.
She didn't even glance at the main house. Not toward the door where two staff members were already standing, prepared to receive the lord and his guest. Instead, her attention focused on the stables, where the kethral smell carried on the evening air — warm hide and hay and the musk of large animals in enclosedspace — and November moved toward it the way water moved downhill, without decision or effort, simply going where she was meant to go.
Rhaezon followed at a distance. He told himself he was observing. Security assessment of the perimeter, the staff positions, the stability of the new arrival. He did not believe himself, and he followed her anyway.
The stable door was open. The stablemaster, Jorek, was inside — a heavyset Aeltharian male with the permanent squint of someone who'd spent forty years in plateau wind. He turned when November entered, and his brow furrowed at the sight of a human woman walking into his stable as though she belonged there.
"Lord Vaethari?—"
"Give her a moment." Rhaezon stopped just inside the door, leaned his shoulder against the frame, and crossed his arms.
November was already moving down the center aisle. The kethral shifted in their stalls at her presence — ears rotating, heads lifting as they encountered something unfamiliar. She walked without urgency. Her hands stayed at her sides.
She stopped at the last stall and Rhaezon's stomach tightened.
The difficult one. The animal without a name, the one that Jorek referred to by its registration number and the hands calledthe problem. Six months on the estate and it had not allowed anyone within arm's reach without pinning its ears flat and swinging that heavy tail in warning. Jorek had been patient with it — managing its health from a distance, keeping it fed and functional, accepting the boundary it had set.
November stood at the stall door. The kethral was at the back, pressed into the far corner, its six limbs braced, ears flat. The tail swept once, a slow deliberate arc.
She didn't enter. She didn't reach. She just stood there. Breathing. Present. Her weight settled into her hips, the same stance he'd seen in the corridor each night — unhurried, grounded, available.
One minute.
The kethral's ears twitched. One rotated forward a quarter-turn.
Two minutes.
The tail went still.
Three minutes. November had not moved. Had not spoken. The stable was quiet except for the other animals shifting in their stalls and Jorek's breathing beside Rhaezon, which had gone very carefully controlled.
At three and a half minutes the kethral took a step forward. Then another. Its forelimbs — the shorter gripping pair below the chest — unfolded slightly, a gesture Rhaezon had never seen the animal make in a non-terrain context. Something almost investigative.
November raised her hand. Slow. Palm open. Fingers relaxed.
The kethral closed the distance. Its broad angular head lowered. Its nostrils flared against her palm, and she let it breathe her in — the alien smell of a species it had never encountered, the warmth of her skin, whatever information it found there that six months of Aeltharian handlers had not provided.
It pressed its head into her hand.
November's fingers curled against the scaled neck. Her thumb moved along the jaw in one slow stroke. The kethral's eyes half-closed.
Rhaezon looked at Jorek. The stablemaster's mouth was open. He shut it. Opened it again. Shut it. Then he turnedto Rhaezon with an expression that communicated several complete sentences without producing a single word.
"Under four minutes," Rhaezon said.
