Everything stopped.
Seraphine froze, her breath catching as the words hit her all at once, her mind struggling to process them.
The cutlery slipped from her fingers, hitting the table with a sharp, echoing clatter that sounded far louder than it should have in the sudden silence.
Corvine felt it immediately. The tension, the weight of what he had just said pressing down on his chest until it almost made it hard to breathe.
Nervousness crept in fast, sharp and unrelenting, and before the silence could stretch any further, he spoke, his voice coming out quicker than he intended. "Sera, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I don't have the right."
Seraphine blinked, as though pulled out of a deep, distant place, her thoughts slowly settling back into the present as her eyes found his.
There was no anger there, no hurt, no frustration, just something soft, and calm, making it even harder for him to hold her gaze.
