Something moved behind the king's expression — not the blankness of someone who didn't know what to think, the specific attention of someone who had received many people in this throne room and had just received something he hadn't received before and found himself curious about it in a way that Eddran's briefings hadn't prepared him for.
"Well," he said.
Eddran managed the formal proceedings with the efficiency of fifteen years of practice. The official acknowledgment of the party's presence, the recognition of Halveth's new household status, the administrative machinery of a court processing what it needed to process. He addressed Halveth on the Dravan matter with the careful neutrality of a proxy who was handling something his principal had not given him explicit instructions on and was therefore operating on best judgment.
Then he turned to Lexel.
