Laesara didn't know why she woke up that night, so long before the dawn, but she did. She wished, later, that she could have said that she 'knew' something was wrong, could have claimed some measure of prescience. But she couldn't. All she did know was that the voices of the weapons in her father's collection, and the other weapons of the household, were uneasy. They spoke in murmured 'voices', but – those that noticed her – told her that all was actually well. Not to worry her pretty little head about it. Variations of the sort.

Uncertainty kept her from returning to sleep. Every time she fell towards sleep, something stopped her, some half-remembered scream that she knew she hadn't heard with her ears, a voice of grief and urgency that wanted her to pay attention. That said that all was not well at all. At first, she thought it was a dream, but her weapon was uneasy, too. And Jiae wasn't uneasy about much.

So, Laesara erred on the side of both caution and ignorance – she picked up her weapon and the Orakoi that insisted on sleeping on her bed (Aestival liked to be near her, even though he was growing fast and nearly too big for the bed) – and carried them down to the training room, making herself comfortable with blankets and pillows. It was further in the house, no windows and many guards away from the outside. She didn't feel like training, but there were a few stray books here, books that could help her sleep.

And they did help. Midway through studying up on the almanac for that year, she fell asleep. It was in the morning, when she woke up, that she learned the news – her bodyguard, the man she had known and counted on all her life, had been found dead. Initially, no one would not give her any details, and when she had finally wormed them free, she could see why.

Something terrible had happened to Malesmech – to die from your blood leaving your body all at once... it had to have been truly awful.

His funeral was modest. She managed to resist her tears all through the negotiations about whether to pay for such a thing, or whether she would be permitted to attend. After all, in her family's opinion, Malesmech was the last thread tying her to her undesirable past. She managed not to cry in the emptiness of the nights, and the sudden lack of her ever-protector. She managed not to shiver at the realization that there was no constant shadow at her back. She held back her tears through the funeral, and the wake – which she had insisted on – and even made it home, her face stony, even impassive. Not a single tear shed.

But that night, when she was alone with her bonded, she let herself cry. Once. A little. And then it was gone, the pain buried beneath what felt like miles of ice. It hurt to feel. It hurt not to feel.

Perhaps, if the pain wasn't so deep and true, perhaps if she hadn't moved on, she would have realized that his death was a message from a power she didn't understand, a greeting of a sort, written in blood. But, perhaps, she did realize it... and did not want to see.

She would regret that later.