"Are you accusing me of something, girl?" Elgard's voice dropped lower, quieter, which somehow made it carry further than shouting ever could have. The tension in the arena pulled taut enough that even the wind seemed reluctant to move through it. Somewhere behind him, the Queen's fan had gone still in her grip, her outrage frozen halfway between speech and silence.
Beside Flinn, Ria's eyes had gone wide and pleading, silently begging her to stop, to pull back from whatever cliff she'd walked herself out onto in front of the entire kingdom. Her lips parted, some half-formed warning trying to find its way out, but no sound came. She was too drained to do anything but watch, helpless, as Flinn stood her ground.
But Flinn wasn't looking at her. Flinn wasn't looking at anyone but the King, her focus narrowed down to nothing else in the world, every ounce of years spent quietly aching over a name she'd never been allowed to say out loud finally rising to the surface all at once.
