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Vaerith’s gaze slides toward her. “Lady Syrenya, this is hardly the moment for commentary.”

“On the contrary,” she says, drifting closer to the exposed circle with the unhurried grace of someone who knows no guard here will dare put a hand on her without written permission and a death wish. “This seems exactly like the moment for commentary. Your wards were designed to conceal a bound entity, not contain a harmless projection.”

The murmurs grow louder.

Vaerith’s mouth tightens by a fraction before he smooths the expression away. “You misread damaged ritual lines.”

Syrenya laughs softly. “I misread many things, Lord Vaerith. Men, wine labels, invitations from widowed dukes. I do not misread bait channels.”

A dark elf clerk near the west rail looks down at the scorched lattice and then quickly looks away. That is enough to spread uncertainty through the front rows. Nobles are excellent at pretending not to notice crimes unless those crimes become unfashionable to ignore, and I can feel the moment the room turns. Not in my favor. Not yet. But away from certainty.

Vaerith senses it too.

His eyes cut back to me. “The hybrid remains the immediate threat.”

I take one step toward him.

It is small. Deliberate. Loud in the silence that follows.

Sable’s voice reaches me from the east perimeter, low and fierce. “Corin.”

I stop before the guards can use the movement as permission. My hands stay open at my sides, though the urge to curl them into fists burns through my arms. My eyes are still gold; I can see the reflection of them in Vaerith’s polished pedestal, cracked into fragments so that a dozen versions of me stare back from the broken surface.

“Your demon tried to kill her,” I say.

My voice comes out calm.

That surprises me more than it surprises anyone else.

I look at Vaerith, not the guards, not the nobles, not the weapons lifting uncertainly around me. “I stopped it. That’s the only proof anyone needed.”

The crowd’s silence changes texture.

Before, it was fear. Now it has questions in it.

Vaerith’s face does not change much, but his eyes do. The satisfaction fades behind something colder. “You admit to consuming the entity.”

“I admit to stopping your attack.”

“My attack?”

The insulted innocence in his tone is almost beautiful. He should bottle it and sell it to cowards.

Isolde steps half a pace forward, ledger satchel at her hip, gray dress darkened where heat and smoke have touched the hem. “The exposed runes show directional release channels aimed through the expert witness position. The entity was housed inside the pedestal before activation.”

Vaerith does not look at her when he answers. That tells me all I need to know about his anger. “You will be silent until called upon.”

“No.”

The word lands clean.

I turn my head just enough to see her face, because I want to remember it. Isolde stands amid burned runes and leveled weapons, chin lifted, eyes bright with a fury so disciplined it could pass for composure if someone did not know how to read her. She is afraid. I feel that through the bond. She is also done obeying.

A guard near the dais shifts his spear toward her.

The hunger surges.

I drive it down so hard pain sparks behind my eyes.