Violet absorbed his last words with a quiet fury. She wanted to spit in his face. She swallowed it. Dignity, once lost, was difficult to reclaim.
When she finally spoke, her voice carried none of the heat coiled inside her.
"I'm not sure what you're trying to imply by pretense." She tilted her head. "I understand trust isn't a resource a Mantle-bearer can afford. But it's still a sight more useful than the arrogant nonsense you keep spitting in my face. Paranoia won't save you — not in three days, not after these walls are torn from all of us."
Her gaze never left his.
"All I want is an alliance of mutual interest. A network dedicated to survival. Nothing more. I've shown you goodwill. I'll offer more, so long as you offer yours. No meddling. No interference." Her eyes narrowed. "And above all else — no leashes."
Her head tilted slightly.
"Sound poetic enough to you, Chion?"
Silence answered. The quiet stretched taut between them.
"Well?" she asked, her gaze fixed on his. "What say you?"
The porcelain smile on his face fractured.
"More pretense."
Two words. They hit like steel through glass.
Something brittle inside her snapped. Her anger folded inward, compressing into something sharp. Her hand came down on the table — not as hard as she wanted, but hard enough.
Thin spiderweb cracks raced across the surface. The bottle trembled, tipped, and rolled off the edge before shattering against the floor.
Neither of them looked down.
"Waste of time."
She turned toward the door.
Chion watched her walk — each step deliberate, controlled, a performance she owed him nothing for.
One heartbeat. Two. Three.
"You're quick to anger."
Violet kept walking. Her hand reached for the door handle.
Arrogant bastard.
"Dain Nyxvalis."
Her fingers paused inches from the handle.
The room seemed to shrink around them.
Slowly, her head turned.
Blue eyes locked onto silver.
"Pardon me," she said quietly. "What did you just say?"
The threat was there.
He pressed on anyway.
"Your father," he said. "Correct?"
Her jaw tightened.
"What of him?"
Chion moved toward the low table, unhurried. He retrieved his untouched cup from beside the shattered remains of the bottle, studied the dark surface for a moment, then set it back down.
"Dain Nyxvalis. A man of considerable reputation — and considerably more enemies. He died leaving both unresolved."
His voice carried no inflection. The tone of a man reading from an archive.
Violet had not moved from the door.
"You've been reading clan archives," she said carefully. "That still doesn't explain why you'd dare throw his name in my direction."
Her hand drifted toward the steel at her side.
Chion did not flinch.
"Because his name is precisely why a highblood of your standing would look in my direction in the first place. You have a great many things the powerful desire. Instead of relinquishing them, you chose arrogance — and that arrogance pushed you into a desperate corner. Where the distance between ruin and salvation is measured by whatever tool you can reach."
He turned slightly, silver eyes settling on her.
"You chose me neither for mutual interest nor in hopes of forging an ally. You came looking for a weapon. A disposable asset to throw into the war you're preparing to start."
"Or am I mistaken?"
Violet said nothing.
The silence betrayed her more thoroughly than denial ever could.
Her hand fell from the door.
"And if it were?" she said quietly.
"Then you should have led with it."
Her eyes sharpened.
"Would that have served me better?"
"It would have served you honestly. In this room, that amounts to the same thing."
He continued.
"I don't respond well to performance. But I understand utility. I understand need." His head tilted slightly. "And I value an honest agreement."
The last words landed differently from the rest.
Not softer.
More precise.
Violet studied him carefully.
"You're saying you don't object," she said slowly, "to being used."
"Indeed."
No hesitation. No shame.
Unease found her.
"You—" She stopped herself, brows tightening. "What exactly are you trying to say, Chion?"