The conversation swelled again, no longer whispers but deliberate observations—each veiled enough to dodge accusation, yet sharp enough to draw blood.
"He really did it," murmured Lord Halder, his voice coated in disbelief. "I've never seen anyone speak like that to him."
"To him, in public," added Lady Grendale, eyes wide behind her gilded fan. "With proof, no less. Gods, he even mocked him."
"And he's still breathing," someone else muttered.
Valeria didn't join the noise at first. She let them ripple around her, like eddies circling a deeper current. But they were watching her now—not just as a noblewoman, but as someone who knew him. A potential translator for the incomprehensible.
She sighed softly and spoke—deliberately.
"He did go a bit far," she admitted. "All those underhanded remarks. The mockery. The showmanship."
A few nodded, half-relieved someone had said it.
"But," she continued, "he backed his words with evidence."
That stilled them. A beat. A visible shift.
