The two lords, Lord George and his weasel-faced companion, lingered for a moment longer, their smirks replaced by a look of frustrated confusion. They had come expecting a fight they could easily win, a victim they could publicly humiliate. Instead, they had found a wall of calm indifference, and they didn't know how to react. With a final, dismissive glance, they melted back into the crowd, leaving me with a small, hollow victory and the lingering taste of cheap wine.
I took another slow sip, my eyes scanning the room. The pressure hadn't eased. If anything, it had intensified. My small, quiet victory had been noted. The whispers were louder now, the glances more frequent. I was no longer just a curiosity; I was a problem. An unknown variable in their carefully calculated social equation. And people like Harren did not like unknown variables.
