Silence crushed the room.
Not the ordinary kind .... this one felt alive, thick, coiled around Aurelia's throat like unseen fingers. Malion did not move. Did not blink. His stillness was more frightening than his anger.
Aurelia's breath trembled in her chest.
She had shouted at him.
At him.
The man who was called the Mad King even in whispered rumors. The man entire battalions feared. The man whose shadows alone made ministers bow.
Yet she stood before him with fire in her spine and terror in her lungs, waiting for the consequences of her own voice.
Malion exhaled slowly.
Not in annoyance.
In reining himself back from something darker.
"Aurelia," he said quietly.....too quietly ....."you forget who you are speaking to."
Her chin lifted, but her voice betrayed her with its tremor. "I know exactly who I'm speaking to."
His jaw clenched.
He moved.
