"Someone from inside was complicit!" Leslie spat, his voice raw and hoarse, too loud for the hall but too honest to be silenced. "And I will kill every one of them with my own hands."
"Leslie," Alexander said, his tone unchanged, steady as stone, "calm down before I knock you out."
He spoke slowly and precisely as he removed his gloves, not for effect, but because he meant every word and had no intention of repeating himself. The exposed skin beneath revealed the familiar lattice of ether scars, fine lines burned in too deep to ever fade, the same patterns that marked Damian's hands when he pushed too far. Lines that no ordinary soldier could carry and live.
"You are annoying me," Alexander added, quieter now, as if that mattered more than the accusation, more than the rage, more than the fact that someone had reached the Emperor's cup.
Gregoris didn't speak.
Edward didn't blink.
