Ilaria suddenly found herself steeling. Something cold was threading through her ribs, alarmingly whispering to her to hold herself from moving. He had always given her the creeps due to his quietness, but she never thought of him as a threat. He was never one.
Maybe it was simply because the fact that he was speaking at all that unsettled her. At family dinners in the past, he had barely spoken a word to the King and Melvin. Sometimes he had not even seemed to have the heart to open his mouth, just sitting there in silence until it was time to leave.
So why the sudden interest? And to talk about something sacrosanct so offhandedly...
If Neven had noticed her reaction, then he paid no mind.
"It was truly a remarkable ceremony, I still remember the first time I faced the Black Dragon in The Maw of Veythar," he went on. His expression was somewhat solemn, like he was merely telling a story from a book rather than experience.
It was what he said next that unruffled her.
