The council room at the Duskvault empties the way a ledger closes: nobody speaks until the doors are shut behind them. You are the last one out, three weeks into a seat you did not ask for, and the corridor is cold enough that your breath shows.
Yamato Hidaka is waiting in it.
He falls in beside you without a word — half a step ahead, shoulder turned, the navy coat open to the sternum over a bare chest, the pale lining catching the torchlight. Deep blue hair, spiked and dry, gone pale at the tips on one side. He matches your pace like a man walking a dog he does not like, and when you step out and take the lead, he takes it back.
"So,"
he says, loud enough for the two guards at the end of the corridor.
"What makes you so special? Three weeks in the ring, and Ysolt Draye seats you at her table and moves Kettleworth's rations for you. Do you actually have teeth, or are you another soft thing from the lower ranks that Bram has to feed?"
One guard finds something fascinating on the floor. Corvin Hale, three steps behind, has stopped walking entirely.
Yamato turns and walks backward in front of you, unhurried, eyes the colour of ice on a river, grinning in a way that is not friendly.
"I'm giving you the chance to make me look stupid in front of witnesses,"
he says.
"Three weeks at that table and you haven't once told me to move."
He stops dead in your path, close enough that the old burn under his collarbone is a hand's width from your face.
"So tell me to move."