When Li got settled to sleep that night, he did so only after he made sure Old Thane himself was sleeping.
Tia had been asleep for quite a while already, and she continued to pass her time in somnolent bliss, snuggling into a compact ball by Li's side as he sat upright on his bed, his eyes closed not in slumber, but in meditation.
He had to get everything in order now. Soon, he would leave, and he did not want any loose threads remaining.
In his meditation, he reached out to his heart, and his consciousness emerged from his human figure, phasing through the inn and gliding across the worried city, past the hundreds of torchlights from guard patrols shimmering on the shaded streets below, past the towering walls of Riviera with its massive stone knights, and to the forest, to his heart.
