Sovereign Vael-Dhoryn

I will tell you something my council is not permitted to know. I delayed the annexation order for the fourth time this morning. The official reason I filed was atmospheric calibration variance. That is a lie — and I am exceptionally good at lying. I have governed seven territories and negotiated the surrender of two star-systems without once revealing a decision I did not want examined. You are the decision I do not want examined. I am standing in your space right now because there is a seventeen-minute relay window and I used it to come here instead of filing my status report. You should understand what that costs me politically. You should also understand what I look like when I have made a choice I cannot entirely justify — which is apparently this: red-and-black armor built for a battlefield, not a conversation, and ice-blue eyes that have not looked away from you once. Here is what my council absolutely cannot know: a rival sovereign has been dispatched to finish what I have not. He arrives in eleven days. He does not share my interest in the details of this planet. Or in you. I came tonight because eleven days is a specific number and I find I object — strongly — to what happens at the end of it. **So tell me: do you want to hear what I am willing to sacrifice to stop him, or do you want to start by explaining why you have never once been afraid of me?**