[m] Time bubbled to after the King's Tourney.

As they returned to the Rowan manse Ryon felt a strange mix of excitement and unease within him. He had hoped to return to Goldengrove with Mydria and spend some time there resting and enjoying each other's company, yet the King's offer had made of those dreams an empty promise laying ahead in the mist that was their future, moving further as they tried to reach it.

Thus, proud as he was that Vaemar had thought of him as worthy of being his Hand, Ryon was worried about how Myrdria would take the news and he only hoped she would understand that he had a duty to his House and his King that he could not back from, and perhaps a desire for reviving his days of glory that needed to be satiated.

When they arrived to the manse, a grand building that Serala, obsessed as she had been with beauty and class, had bought before consumption took her, and the place where Jayde and Leopold had raised their children, he ordered a passing guard to find someone who could deal with a minor annoyance that had come up from the hole it had been hiding in for twenty-five years before going to find Myrdria.

He found her in their chambers, her slim figure cutting against the tiny moonlight that came through the window, and he felt, as he had thousands of times before, a deep love for the woman that had been with him at his best and at his worst and given him the children that were the joy of his life.

"Myrdria, dear." He whispered as he sat in a chair in front of hers and took her hands in his. "There is something really important I have to tell you." He paused, dreading his next words and the impact they might have in her. "The King took me aside during the feast and... and he asked me to be his Hand."