Not here.
Not now.
I stand, wiping my hand against my pants without looking at it, forcing my breathing back into something usable.
“We move,” I say.
Verr looks at me.
Not questioning.
Not hesitating.
“Yeah,” he says.
I glance once at Skot.
Just once.
“Make it count,” I mutter under my breath.
Then I turn toward the open door.
“Let’s go start a war he actually has to fight.”
36
VERR
The hall is too quiet when we enter.
Not silent—never silent—but restrained in a way that feels intentional, like every voice that belongs here has been pulled tight and held just below the surface. Boots strike polished stone in measured rhythms, conversations tapering off as we move through the outer corridor, eyes tracking us without turning heads, attention sharpening without acknowledgment. The air carries the faint scent of oil and metal, layered over the colder, cleaner smell of carved stone, and beneath it all there’s something else—expectation, heavy and unspoken, settling into the bones of the place.
“They weren’t expecting this,” Lyria murmurs beside me, her voice low enough that it doesn’t carry beyond the space between us.
“They were expecting something,” I reply, keeping my pace even as the doors to the main chamber come into view. “Just not this version of it.”
Her shoulder brushes mine briefly as we walk, not by accident, not quite deliberate either—just enough contact to ground the moment without breaking it.
“Good,” she says. “Then don’t give them time to adjust.”
I don’t intend to.
The doors open before we reach them, pulled wide by guards who don’t meet my gaze as we pass. Inside, the chamber unfolds in layered tiers of dark stone and precise geometry, nobles already gathered along the edges, their attention shifting in unison as we enter. The sound of our footsteps carries further here, sharper, echoing just enough to mark every step as deliberate.
My father stands at the center.
Of course he does.
He doesn’t turn immediately, his attention fixed on the space ahead like the room will arrange itself without his input. It almost does.
Almost.
“Late,” he says, finally acknowledging our presence without looking directly at us.
“On time,” I reply, my voice carrying cleanly across the chamber as I step forward, not stopping at the edge of the gathered space, not waiting for permission to enter it fully.
That gets his attention.
