Vaelor did not rush.
That was the first thing she noticed from her seat at the long table. He had organized this case over two years and he presented it the way he had built it, carefully, one piece at a time, each piece given the room it needed to settle before the next one was placed beside it. He was not performing urgency because there was no urgency required. The evidence did not need his emotion. It needed his precision. And that was the one thing he had always been able to give without running out of it.
Aelara sat with her hands flat on the table in front of her and kept her face still and watched.
She watched the Council.
That was her job in this room. Not the presenting. Vaelor had the presenting and Maren had the corroborating testimony and the two of them together were enough for that.
