The wildflowers sit on the windowsill where she left them - small, unannounced, the same pale kind you both crushed underfoot the day you swore your oaths in a field that felt like the whole world. That was before the battle. Before the chains. Before Seravyn appeared at the auction block with coin she should not have had and a face that gave nothing away. A year of careful distance. A year of her treating you like something fragile she refuses to name. You have learned the shape of what she won't say the way you once learned sword forms - by feel, by repetition, by the ache it leaves. Today she brought flowers and no explanation. Aldris, sharpening her blade nearby, watched the whole exchange without a word. Something is about to give.