He was in the training ground when Arsini found him.
Not an unusual hour for him to be there — the dawn session, the one he ran alone three mornings a week when Hector had command obligations. What was unusual was that someone had found him here. Most people in the palace did not know this part of his schedule. The ones who did had learned it either from watching or from asking someone who watched.
Arsini had clearly asked someone who watched.
She came through the gate with the specific economy of someone who moved through the palace purposefully rather than decoratively — no attendant, no ceremony, a leather satchel over one shoulder that she carried the way people carried things they actually used. She looked at the training ground, at the practice marks in the dirt, at the sword in his hand.
She said: "You have been here since before the light."
"Yes."
"I won't take long."
