Dravan's level suppressed. The room became legible in the way rooms become legible when the variables have been simplified. Lexel moved toward him with the two-finger grip — the chopstick precision of someone picking up something small — and caught the index finger before Dravan's hand had finished the motion it was attempting.
Dravan pulled. His hand didn't move.
"Let go," Dravan said. The voice of someone whose physical reality had shifted but whose confidence hadn't received the update yet. "You want to kill me — go ahead. But kill me in the capital and you'll have a target on your back that the Baron couldn't dream of. I am connected to every significant house in Jaar. I am—"
Lexel twisted.
The snap was architectural — the sound of something load-bearing being addressed at the source. Dravan's voice stopped. His face did something it had probably never done before in a room full of people, which was register something it couldn't redirect.
