CHAPTER 31: THE ENVOY'S QUESTION
HAZEL'S POV
There were twenty of them.
I counted from the window of the upper corridor while Caleb was still downstairs organizing the inner circle response, because standing still and waiting had never been something I was built for and watching gave me information that being walked in blind did not. Twenty riders in gold-trimmed armor that caught the morning light like a taunt, their horses trained to stillness in the outer courtyard in the way that only horses belonging to people who expected to be obeyed were ever trained. Their formation was deliberate — not aggressive, not yet, but arranged in a way that communicated presence. We are here. We are many. We are not leaving until we have what we came for.
At the front of them, already dismounted, already straightening his gloves with the unhurried ease of a man who had never once in his life been kept waiting and did not intend to start, was Lord Caedmon Vale.
