Morning found Malvoria awake before the world. She stretched lazily, golden light just beginning to creep across the tapestry-strewn walls, and listened to the silence—a rare, precious hush that always felt miraculous in a castle teeming with life.
For a long moment, she simply lay there, breathing in the quiet, the comforting weight of a new day pressing lightly on her chest.
Elysia slept curled at her side, one hand slung over Malvoria's waist, her hair splayed across the pillow in a wild silver halo. In sleep, she looked impossibly young and heartbreakingly peaceful.
Malvoria reached out, letting her fingertips drift through those tangled strands, marveling as she always did at the fierce, soft beauty of the woman beside her.
The urge to get up and check her preparations—the picnic basket, the opalescent teleportation shard from Saelira, the carefully chosen bottle of wine—rose in her chest, but Malvoria resisted.
Today would be perfect.
