Arthur's voice held the quiet of something irreversible. It spilled into the room like ink into water, spreading without resistance, altering the air itself.
"I mean you no harm."
It should have felt like comfort, but didn't. The words moved too deeply. They settled under the skin like needles of smoke. Not a threat, no, but not a mercy either. He might as well have said, Not yet.
His eyes did not stray. They never did.
"I only ask..." He said next, slower this time, as if turning a thought in his mouth to feel its edge. "That for the days we share this ship, you keep to your own. Leave the Lorebreakers to their work until we reach Westmarch."
It was not an order, and not a plea. It was an invocation of stillness. A spell cast to hold the fragile breath of the moment where it hung.
Rynna responded before silence could thicken.
