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“Let him show them,” I murmur.

His eyes remain on Vaerith. “He aims at you, I move.”

“Yes.”

“No argument?”

“I am learning efficiency.”

The corner of his mouth pulls slightly despite the tension. “Terrifying.”

Vaerith raises his hand toward me.

The magic he casts is fast, vicious, and stripped of elegance. A spear of red-white ward force erupts from the shattered dais and tears across the courtyard, aimed directly at my chest. It carries the same signature as the confinement spell, cold command wrapped around punishment, sharpened now by desperation rather than law.

Corin moves before the crowd can scream.

He does not lunge at Vaerith.

He steps into the path of the spell and catches it with one open hand.

The impact cracks the stone beneath his boots, and light flares around his arm in a violent spiral. I feel the attack hit him through the bond, feel the spell try to hook into his hunger and twist it toward retaliation. Corin’s jaw flexes once. Gold burns brighter under his skin. Then he closes his fingers around the ward force and drags it inward just far enough to break its shape.

The spell collapses into black-gold sparks that rain harmlessly onto the stones between us.

Corin exhales slowly.

Controlled.

The crowd sees that too.

Sable’s voice rings from near the trade hall steps. “That was an assassination attempt in front of witnesses, right? I just want to make sure everybody’s ledger is open to the correct page.”

Lady Syrenya raises one hand. “Witnessed.”

Lady Othrel’s cane strikes the ground. “Witnessed.”

Kairven’s nephew looks at the clerks. “Record it.”

The guild recorder who read Vaerith’s letter finds her voice again. “Recorded.”

Vaerith’s guards look at one another.

That is when the tide turns.

It is visible, almost physical. Men and women who had kept their hands near weapons now lower them by inches. Minor nobles shift away from Vaerith instead of toward him. Clerks gather the evidence faster. Human servants straighten from their crouches and look at the man who owned the estate with something more dangerous than fear.

Vaerith’s face hardens as he realizes the room has changed around him.

“You are all fools,” he says. “You think ledgers and copied letters matter now? You think a hybrid who absorbed a devourer will remain stable because a woman with useful blood tells him to breathe?”

Corin’s voice drops low beside me. “Careful.”

Vaerith’s gaze snaps to him. “Or what?”

Corin lifts the hand that caught the spell. A few last sparks crawl over his fingers before dying. His expression is calm enough to scare even me.

“Or you keep talking,” Corin says, “and everyone realizes fear is the only argument you have left.”