elia does not rush to find him. the corridors are quieter now, the kind of quiet that comes only after something has already been decided, sealed, spoken aloud in a room full of witnesses who will carry it elsewhere. she walks as she always does, in her own measured, unhurried steps, soft against the stone, as though the castle itself has learned to absorb her presence rather than announce it. the silk at her wrists stirs faintly with each movement, pale as desert light, and for a moment she lets her fingers trail along the wall beside her, grounding herself in something solid, something older than either of them. she finds him where she expected to. not by chance. for a brief moment, she does not speak. elia simply looks at him, properly, without the distance of a court or the weight of watching eyes. there is something different about it now, she thinks. not in him, but in the space between them. thinner. more defined. something named where before there had only been implication. ❝ so, ❞ she says at last, her voice soft, though it does not waver, ❝ we are to be married. ❞ she tilts her head slightly, studying him, not with suspicion, not even with uncertainty, but with a kind of quiet curiosity, as though she is trying to understand the shape of something she has already agreed to hold. ❝ i suppose we should speak to one another, ❞ she continues, the faintest trace of something warmer threading through her tone, though it never quite becomes a smile. ❝ before everyone else decides who we are for us. ❞
