Vassin dismissed each one.
Not quickly....he considered each challenge with genuine attention, which meant when he dismissed them it was clearly because they didn't hold and not because he was ignoring them.
An hour into the lineage portion Malachai's seats went quiet.
They had run out of challenges worth making.
Vassin set down the final document. Looked at Eve directly for the first time.
"The lineage claim is substantiated," he said. Simply. Like he was noting the weather. "We move to the Reckoning."
Malachai spoke first.
His voice was warm and measured and entirely without the cold clarity she'd seen in his study the morning after the extraction. This was the public version. The grandfather version. Reasonable, regretful, genuinely concerned about Court stability.
