"My brother asked me to."
Zafira said it the way you say a thing you've already said to yourself a few times and stopped being annoyed about.
"Malrik and Vaelis have been friends for years. Everyone knows it, and neither of them has ever bothered pretending otherwise, so when Myrrhvale opened the observer seats my brother came to me and asked me to take it as a favour."
"With what purpose, though?" Trafalgar asked.
"That's the whole of the purpose. Malrik couldn't come himself, his friend was in the middle of the worst two years of his life, and he wanted somebody down here who'd tell him honestly whether Vaelis was still standing." Zafira turned the glass a quarter turn without drinking from it. "He didn't ask me to protect anybody or push anything through. He asked me to come and see if things were all right."
Trafalgar turned that over.
