Chapter 360 --360
"Two months," she said. "The logistics assignment runs two months. After that, I’ll have a clearer picture of the full situation and we’ll have a different conversation."
He looked at her. His tail moved once — that slow, considered movement. "Two months," he said.
"Yes."
He stood. "I’ll leave you to your garden." He paused. "You should sit in the sun more often. You look like someone who has been inside for a very long time."
She looked up at him. "Mahir."
He stopped.
"Don’t find me again unless I’ve called for you," she said. It was not unkind. It was simply the boundary of where they were right now, stated clearly, which was more respectful than leaving it unstated.
He received it. "Yes, Your Majesty."
He left.
She turned back to the garden. The sun was very warm. The bird in the hedgerow was still doing whatever it was doing.
She sat in it for another twenty minutes — not reading, not reviewing, not planning. Just sitting in the sun in the too-warm section of the east garden that nobody else used at noon.
Then she went back inside.