"Hahaha, I would never do something so reckless, Gan," Hye laughed, pulling out a chair and spinning it around to sit.
"If I had kidnapped royalty, we wouldn't be looking at crates of crystals and ship parts. We'd be looking at an endless stream of Hescos battle-fleets parked on our doorstep, looking for blood."
"For real, though, what happened?" Lily leaned over the table, her eyes wide with curiosity. She reached out, playfully mussing his hair as if he were still just the young man she'd met at the start of the end.
"We saw the manifest. We knew you were meeting with them to talk, but how on earth did you convince those arrogant bastards to hand over these kinds of priceless goods? What did you give them that was worth more than a kingdom's budget?"
"They are priceless to us, that much is true," Hye said, his smile calm and steady as he looked around the room at the sceptical faces of his companions.
