I sat in the chair across from my father's desk, spinning a pen between my fingers and watching the light catch the silver ink as it turned.
The room was silent except for the scratch of his quill on parchment and the soft crackle of the fire in the hearth behind him. He hadn't looked up once since I walked in. He was signing documents, reading reports, doing whatever it was that Dukes did when they weren't dealing with their troublesome sons.
I spun the pen again. Caught it. Spun it again. The silence was suffocating, the kind of heavy quiet that pressed against your ears and made you want to say something just to break it.
I let out a long, heavy sigh.
My father didn't look up. "That was your hundred and eighth sigh since you walked in."
I blinked, the pen nearly slipping from my fingers. "You were counting?"
"I keep track of these things." His quill never stopped moving.
I sighed again, louder this time, just to see what he would do.
