Dexmon's jaw set.
The setting was immediate. Hard. The kind of jaw-lock that belonged to a man whose body had received information his mouth had been refusing to process, and the refusing had been deliberate, and the deliberate was cracking under the pressure of a best friend standing in front of him bleeding from the nose on the back of a storm dragon in the middle of a war trying to have a conversation that was going to change everything.
"I know."
Two words. Cold. Flat. Carrying zero surprise and zero warmth and the comprehensive, devastating weight of a man who had already done the math.
"Save it. We have a kingdom to defend." Dexmon's voice was iron wrapped in ice.
The sentence closed a door. Locked it. Put a deadbolt on it and bricked over the frame. That conversation was being postponed indefinitely by a man whose kingdom was under siege and whose priorities were being managed by fury rather than forgiveness.
