Then, she raised a single hand again.
The roaring crowd cut off instantly. Not a cough, not a shuffle. Total obedience.
Her gaze shifted across the front ranks, passing over the battered captains, the bowing elders, and landing squarely on the broad-shouldered man standing casually at the base of the stairs.
Sol hadn't knelt. He hadn't cheered. He was still leaning back on one heel, his arms folded across his chest, watching her with that same lazy, unbothered smirk.
Veylara's eyes met his crimson gaze. For the briefest fraction of a heartbeat, behind the sovereign majesty of a newly crowned ruler, the sharp, proprietary heat of a woman who remembered every breathless second beneath the willows flashed across her sapphire irises.
