"No."
The word left Elenara's lips without hesitation, sharp enough to cut through the charged air.
The garden answered her refusal. Roots tore free from the soil, coiling upward around Valttair's seat, stopping just short of touching him. Branches creaked as they bent inward, leaves stiffening, their edges hardening to something closer to blades than foliage.
"I will not accept this," Elenara said, her voice cold now, stripped of all courtesy. "Kaedor will die by my hand. His blood will answer for what his house has done."
She took a step forward, and the ground followed, surging beneath her feet. "They have violated sanctuaries we have protected for centuries," she continued. "Places bound by oaths older than your house. Older than mine. They desecrated them. Used them."
Her eyes burned. "They betrayed the very purpose of the Eight."
Valttair stood.
The motion was abrupt enough to draw a sharp creak from the roots around him.
"Because you allowed them to," he said.
