Chapter 355 --355
Teva said yes without hesitation, which was either confidence or impulsiveness, and Elara had watched her long enough to know it was confidence.
Dorin said yes after a moment that was not hesitation but consideration, which was exactly right.
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The conversation with Fen happened that afternoon, outside.
Fen had appeared at the edge of the meeting room doorway when Elara was finishing the notes from the morning session, and had stood there with the quality of someone who had made a decision and was now at the first step of executing it.
"I have my answer," she said.
"Come in," Elara said.
Fen came in and sat down and looked at her directly. "I want to understand something before I say yes," she said. "The role you described — something we define together based on what’s needed. I want to understand what that actually means in practice. Because I have been in a role that was defined for me, and it didn’t fit, and I came back here rather than stay in something that was wrong. I don’t want to do that again."
Elara looked at her. "What specifically didn’t fit about the capital posting?"
"I was guarding a person," Fen said. "A specific person in a specific location. And that person was — it was Lord Castin’s household, the secondary posting that the program places graduates in during the first year." She paused. "Lord Castin is not a bad man. His household is not a bad household. The work was correct, technically. But I was spending my capability standing in a room making sure nothing happened, and I knew — I knew clearly — that there were things happening outside that room that I could see and couldn’t respond to because my instruction was to stay in the room."