Beorn lifted one hand.
The soldiers lining both walls responded immediately. At the simple gesture, they lowered their pistols in one smooth, disciplined motion, keeping them at a low ready instead of returning them to their holsters.
Baldric's knights were slower. Their swords dipped only after a full breath had passed, reacting less to any command than to the subtle shift in the room itself. They still didn't understand those iron weapons well enough to judge them by instinct.
No one sheathed a weapon.
Not yet.
The clerk's quill hadn't paused or hurried through any of it. It simply rested where it had stopped.
Beorn let the silence linger while he turned over conclusions he'd reached long before tonight.
Baldric's demands had never truly concerned Dunvarre. The council in Brennmark might had every reason to want the princess returned, since as long as the old king's bloodline endured, however distant or powerless, it remained a threat to the government that had replaced him.
