The bowl in Kael's hand shattered without warning.
It wasn't thrown. It wasn't slammed. His fingers simply tightened, muscles locking for a fraction of a second, and the ceramic gave up with a dry, brittle crack. Shards spilled onto the table and slid between his fingers, some falling to the floor with soft clinks.
Kael didn't look at them.
His eyes stayed fixed on Kukulkan, dark and still, the kind of stillness that came before something irreversible.
Artemis noticed it immediately. Her chatter stopped mid-thought, her drunken haze thinning as she glanced at Kael's broken bowl and then at his hand, uncut, unmoving. She didn't say anything, but her posture straightened.
Kael did nothing else.
Because Mia had already moved.
The staff struck the floor with a solid, ringing thud.
