For a moment after Achilor's command echoed across the courtyard, no one moved, as if even the air itself had grown heavy with doubt and hesitation, pressing down on every member of the Moonshade Family who stood there with lowered gazes and clenched fists, their confidence eroded by the repeated failures that had come one after another without mercy, until even the strongest among them had been reduced to nothing more than another confirmation of their limits.
Lord Vord let out a slow breath through his nose, his eyes narrowing slightly as he watched the silent group before him, and though he did not speak his thoughts aloud, the irritation was written plainly across his face, no longer hidden behind courtesy or diplomacy, because what he had seen so far was far from what he had expected when he first sensed their arrival from another plane, and the excitement that had once filled him had now faded into something colder and far more practical.
