Ambrose didn't react to his words.
She simply stood there, her gaze drifting into the empty air ahead of her, unfocused and distant, as if she had stepped somewhere far away inside her own mind. The silence stretched on. It was only when Lukas repeated himself that she finally blinked, the dazed, trance-like haze dissolving from her eyes.
"To think a sword could be so graceful… so brilliant." Her voice came out quieter than usual, stripped of its earlier sharpness. "All my life, I have only ever looked at it as a weapon capable of nothing but brute killing."
She turned to look at him then, and for once, the cold composure she wore so naturally had softened around the edges. Her eyes, visible above the cat mask, were open and still — deep like a pond on a windless day — carrying something that looked almost like wonder.
"Thank you."
Lukas held her gaze for exactly one moment.
