"Enough."
Gold pressed outward with the word.
For one suspended breath, Arik's ether settled into something older and more precise. It moved through the room without touching Liam, passed over Mezos's blue blade, and folded around the stranger's shadows until every force present understood exactly where the command had come from.
The stranger's watery jade eyes sharpened.
Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
It was a narrow expression with no warmth in it, but genuine amusement moved beneath the anger.
"There you are," he murmured.
Arik's gaze hardened. "You will identify yourself."
"I intended to."
"You entered through a wall, attacked me, insulted me, and began evaluating my security chief."
"Yes."
"That is not an introduction."
"It revealed considerably more than a name would have."
Mezos kept the ether knife against the man's nape. "His Highness requested your identity."
The stranger glanced back at him.
"You may lower that."
"No."
