Talyn's blade hit the ground before Kane could stop him.
"Say that again," Talyn said, staring at Lira, voice flat with disbelief.
"You heard me the first time," Lira said. "Cassius burned that settlement to erase a rival claim your father represented. It was never random. It was never about Dorian's war spilling over."
"My father died in a border skirmish," Talyn said. "Years before any of this started. Not in that raid."
"Are you certain of that," Lira said. "Or is that simply what you were told."
Talyn's jaw worked, nothing coming out, the ground shifting under a version of his own history he'd carried as fact for years.
Aris approached from the Holt camp, drawn by the tension, his expression hardening further when he caught the tail end of the exchange. "What's happening here."
