The room settled in a brittle hush, tension hanging like frost-laden branches waiting to snap.
Zaria stretched lazily. “Shall we begin diplomacy? Or shall we all continue emotionally combusting in a polite circle?”
“I already combusted twice today,” the Baroness announced. “My capacity is limited.”
Esther inhaled deeply, steadying the storm inside her chest.
“Good,” she said. “Because I’m done being polite.”
Her father stiffened as if she’d struck him.
The words settled differently than she expected.
Not sharp.
Not reckless.
True.
Esther felt something align inside her — the last lingering fracture between who she had been raised to be and who the world now required her to become.
She wasn’t rejecting diplomacy.
She was rejecting silence.
“Esther—”
She stood.
Nythir’s fingers tightened around hers, reassuring and fierce at once.
“I love you,” she said to her father. “But I am furious with you.”
Silence dropped like a falling guillotine.
Arcturus’s crown tilted slightly as if even the metal had been shocked. “I know I failed—”
“It’s not just about me!” The echo charm carried her voice across the hall, amplifying the quiver beneath her words. “It’s about them.”
She gestured toward the massive window. Beyond it, the mountains glowed with morning light, shadows pooling at their bases like spilled ink. But what Esther saw wasn’t Draewyn’s peaks—it was Valedara’s alleys and broken market squares.
“Do you know how many children go to sleep cold?” she demanded. “Do you know how many refugees I met who were living off scraps? How many villages burned while we did nothing?”
Her father swallowed hard.
“I received reports—”
“And that is exactly the problem.” Esther’s voice wavered with heartbreak and fury. “You received numbers. I saw names.”
Lupin shifted, looking at the floor.
She zeroed in on him. “Do you know why our alliance with Kraggmar stalled? Why we had no support? Why everything fell apart when raids began?”
Lupin flushed painfully red. “I didn’t want to leave you alone.”
“Exactly,” Esther said. Her voice cracked. “You were so afraid to lose me that you lost them.”
Arietta smirked, elbowing him. “I tried to tell you she could take you in a fight.”
