Complete silence filled the carriage.
Not the comfortable kind. The suffocating kind. The kind that pressed down on your chest and made every breath feel like an effort.
It had been an hour since they'd left for Veldora, and the questions had been relentless for the first thirty minutes. Question after question about the exile, about what really happened, about why he'd thrown away everything.
Finally, Jax had sighed so hard it sounded like his soul was trying to escape through his mouth.
"Fine. You want to know? Here's the summary."
He'd leaned back against the carriage wall, his voice flat. "I gently approached Lysandra and asked for leave. Explained the situation very politely. She rejected it. I told her what was happening, the war, the queen in danger, all of it. She didn't give a single fuck. That pissed me off."
