ETAN
Neither of them wanted to sleep. They talked through the night, discussing everything from their childhood adventures, to their hopes and dreams for the future.
But throughout, Etan was working to accommodate the tightness in his chest.
Then, in the early hours of the morning, Ayleth stopped talking and her breathing evened out.
Etan's did not.
He was not ready to believe his father had been the instigator of the ill-feeling between their kingdoms… but neither could he dismiss Ayleth's account. And if there was any chance she was correct, that it was his father's actions that had spurred the Zenithran King to uphold the generational feud—to make it a public line of conflict, rather than an undercurrent at court—then… suddenly his father's humility in the face of all this looked very, very different.
