Chapter 27: Caelen and the Weight of a Wrong Certainty

Bryndis did not ask for Rook's sword. She held out her hand, and the quality of the gesture — flat palm, absolute stillness, the expression of a woman who has already completed several internal calculations and found only one viable conclusion — communicated the rest without requiring language. Rook looked at her hand for a moment, and then, with the measured deliberateness of a man choosing to cooperate rather than being compelled to, he unbuckled the scabbard and placed it across her palm.

'The knife at your left hip as well,' Bryndis said.

He gave her that too.