His answer rippled out across the table, and every branch of the family had a reaction to it.
They had all heard the same thing underneath the words. Hand Trafalgar the patriarch's seat, and he would take it without a breath of hesitation. They were not wrong about that. What none of them grasped was that the seat had never been the point.
He wanted no crown from these people. What he wanted was older and colder than ambition, and it carried a plain name: payment. For everything this family had done to him, and to others who could not fight back, he had forgotten none of it. He never would.
Ysolde was the first to move into the gap.
"Allow me to be the one to say it, Trafalgar. Congratulations on finishing at the Academy." Her voice carried the warmth the rest of the table lacked, and her manner held none of Verena's edge. "And Euclid has done remarkable things under you. Anyone with sense can see the territory has thrived."
