"Insolent!"
Serayu's voice was contained, cold. And her violet eyes now blazed with a fury that made the autumn air feel suddenly, dangerously thin.
"That boy," she spat. "That child. That mewling, grasping, presumptuous whelp—"
"Serayu." Lazuardi calmed again.
"Seventeen years," Serayu continued. "Seventeen years His Majesty went for his dangerous pilgrimage to protect the world from evil. And this—this insect thinks he can simply walk into His Majesty's sanctuary, guided by the scribblings of a false prophet, and harvest him? Like timber? Like ore?"
Her elegant hands were trembling with the effort of not reaching for the blade Arzhen couldn't see, the power coiled beneath her human guise that would reduce him to ash and memory.
"We should have killed him," Jenggala said.
