The torchlight guttered against the damp walls, shadows swelling and shrinking as if the stone itself were listening. Cain felt the air press tighter around them, the silence after his words stretching too long, growing heavier. He welcomed it. Silence was its own test—who broke it first revealed themselves.
Hunter, unsurprisingly, was the one who held firm. His gaze never wavered, the same calm that had unsettled Cain at the start still lingering like a blade kept behind the back. Susan shifted, impatient, her arms tightening across her chest as if her own stillness were a punishment. Roselle's eyes tracked every flicker of Cain's expression, measuring him, dissecting him, hungry for an answer beneath the one he'd already given.
Cain let them wait. Waiting was the battlefield.
