Vaelis said nothing. For several seconds, Trafalgar wondered whether he had decided to ignore the question entirely. Until now, the First Heir had answered everything put in front of him, sometimes directly and sometimes with enough distance to avoid giving more than necessary.
This was different. Trafalgar watched him without speaking. After so much time around nobles, commanders and people who survived by choosing every word carefully, he had become good at recognizing patterns. Not at reading minds, but at knowing when someone had decided silence was safer than an answer.
Vaelis was doing exactly that. Conversations like this had become exhausting over the years because words were rarely just words around people with power. A careless sentence could become evidence, a promise or an admission depending on who repeated it later.
Trafalgar waited until Vaelis finally looked at him again.
