The following month settled into a routine so quickly that Liam occasionally forgot they had entered Nuria only weeks earlier.
Most mornings began before the city fully brightened.
Deira's suspended districts were still washed in pale blue when Liam joined Arik for breakfast in the private dining room, where narrow windows overlooked bridges suspended between towers and the slow golden movement of ether beneath them. The imperial residence had gradually lost some of its museum-like stillness as more sections reopened around its returning sovereign. Staff crossed the corridors at all hours now, old systems woke beneath the floors, and rooms sealed for decades were cleaned, catalogued, and returned to use.
Breakfast remained one of the few parts of the day that belonged entirely to them.
