The clink of silverware against porcelain was the loudest sound in the Ujochi dining hall. Silence, thick and oppressive, hung heavy over the polished table, broken only by the occasional scrape or the barely audible rustle of rich fabrics.
Jorel sat rigid, picking at a piece of roasted fowl on his plate, his gaze fixed somewhere between Jerol, at the head of the table, and his mother across from him.
She was a picture of cool elegance, ate with precise, unhurried movements. Her dark eyes, usually veiled, held a distant, almost imperceptible coldness whenever they flickered towards Jorel.
Zara kept her gaze down, her fork pushing food around her plate. Her earlier vulnerability from the flower patch seemed to have retreated behind a veil of quiet politeness.
