She picked up her fork, speared a delicate piece of fish, and examined it with the kind of attention usually reserved for fascinating puzzles.
"He was indeed passionate," she said quietly, almost conversationally. "About many things. Power. Control. Legacy." She lifted her eyes to meet Vetra's directly, and there was something in that gaze that made even Lady Isolde shift uncomfortably. "I learned much from watching him."
A pause. Deliberate. Weighted.
"Perhaps more than he intended."
Translation: I know exactly what you're doing. I was trained by a master manipulator. And everything he taught me, through intention or through trauma, I have learned to wield better than he ever did.
The nobles who understood the subtext, and most of them did, felt their assumptions about this woman shift and realign like ice cracking underfoot.
She wasn't deflecting. Wasn't defending her father or trying to distance herself from his legacy. She was *acknowledging* it. Claiming it. Using it.
