"You leave the debt open?"
"Yes..."
Bruce had said it lightly, almost casually, but his eyes told a different story. They were sharp. Calculating. Impressed in a way that had nothing to do with admiration and everything to do with reassessment.
Because a monarch's open debt was no trivial thing.
It was influence deferred. A future lever left undefined. A blank space in a contract that the creditor could fill at a time and in a manner of their choosing, when the stakes were higher, when the need was greater, when the political landscape had shifted enough to make the ask worth more than anything Bruce could demand today.
It was the kind of move that career diplomats spent years learning to execute.
And Bruce had done it on instinct.
Or so it appeared.
Duke filed the observation away quietly and said nothing more.
