The Hall was quieter now, emptied of spectacle and heavy words. What remained was the practical aftermath of power—lists to be closed, riders to be dispatched, decisions that would not be sung about but would matter longer than any chorus.
Heyshem stood with Yahs beneath the high windows, arms folded, weight settled into his heels the way it did when he was about to speak as more than a subject.
“This can’t be handled like leave,” Heyshem said. “Not if you want it to hold.”
Yahs did not bristle. He waited.
“In the clans,” Heyshem continued, “a binding isn’t sealed by witnesses alone. It needs distance. Ti where no one is watching for cracks. Where a couple learns each other without the noise of duty pressing in from every side.”
He glanced briefly toward the doors, as if he could already see the road beyond them. “If Yohan stays in the city, he’ll be working whether you forbid it or not. And Lyra will spend the whole ti being careful instead of being herself.”
Yahs exhaled once, thoughtful. “So you’re asking for removal.”
“I’m telling you it’s required,” Heyshem said evenly. “A month, at least. Travel included. A week out. A week back. The middle kept clear.”
Yahs studied him for a long mont, then nodded. “Granted. I’ll have it entered as sanctioned absence. No summons. No riders. No clever exceptions.”
“That’s the easy part,” Heyshem said. “The rest is preparation.”
Sheena, who had been leaning against a pillar with the air of soone listening to a familiar argunt, straightened. “He ans soone has to get there first,” she said cheerfully. “Otherwise the clan will turn it into a proving.”
“A welcoming,” Heyshem corrected.
“A welcoming with tests,” Sheena shot back. “And food. And speeches. And that one aunt who insists on checking whether the roof beams were laid correctly.”
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Yahs smiled despite himself. “I take it this has happened before.”
Sheena laughed outright. “Our honeymoon?” She tapped her chest with a thumb. “We made it three days before soone tracked us down to ask Heyshem to settle a boundary dispute. Very romantic. Nothing says intimacy like arguing grazing rights over a fire.”
Heyshem grimaced. “You married a clan leader. That part was on you.”
“And yet,” Sheena said sweetly, “I stayed.”
She turned back to Yahs, expression sharpening into competence. “We’ll go ahead of them. Horses. As far as Three Pines. Fast enough to arrive before rumor does.”
Heyshem nodded. “We’ll have the cabin aired, stocked, roof checked. Let the path be clear before they ever see it.”
Yahs raised an eyebrow. “You know the place well.”
“I should,” Heyshem said. “Yohan built half of it.”
That earned him Yahs’s full attention.
“He did more than that,” Heyshem went on. “When Sheena and I needed ti—real ti, not stolen hours—Yohan stepped into my role. Ran ssages. Settled disputes. Kept the clan steady without drawing attention to himself. A full month.”
Sheena smiled at the mory. “He pretended it was temporary. Brought gifts to smooth tempers. Fixed fences no one had asked him to. By the ti we ca back, no one had noticed we were gone.”
Heyshem’s voice softened, just slightly. “That’s the man you’re elevating. He already knows how to hold space for others. He just doesn’t do it for himself.”
Yahs inclined his head, accepting the weight of that. “Then this is repaynt,” he said. “And recognition.”
“It’s tradition,” Heyshem corrected. “You don’t take from a man who once carried your burden unless you’re willing to carry his.”
Sheena added lightly, “And preferably without interrupting his honeymoon.”
That drew a quiet laugh from Yahs. “I give you my word. When they go, they go clean.”
He paused, then said more formally, “You have my approval. Do what you need to do.”
Heyshem nodded once, satisfied. “Good. We leave by midday.”
As they turned toward the doors, Sheena glanced back. “For the record,” she said to Yahs, “the stone cabin is solid. But if Yohan left his tools where he always does, you’ll find gifts hidden in the beams. He never arrives anywhere empty-handed.”
Yahs watched them go—brother and sister-in-law, already moving faster than ceremony ever could.
Beyond the city, the road waited. And before joy could safely arrive, soone would clear the ground—not with banners or law, but with familiarity, mory, and the quiet authority of those who had learned, the hard way, how necessary such things were.
“The work does not end when the crown is set.
It ends when the next life has sothing safe to inherit.”
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