The pressure between Trafalgar and Maeron collapsed in a heartbeat, both auras pulled back the instant those words crossed the hall.
Valttair came through the doors. Nothing about him had changed, not really, except the hair. Two years shut away had given him no reason to bring a blade near his face, and it showed. His platinum hair hung longer than Trafalgar had ever seen it, and a full beard had grown in over the severe line of his jaw, the sort a man only wore after a very long time somewhere far from mirrors. Plainly, looking unkempt in front of his own family was the last thing weighing on him.
What did reach every person in the room was the power. It came off Valttair like heat off a forge, quiet and enormous, and it was nothing any of them had felt before. Not from him or from anyone.
