"Friendly." Her chest hurts with the sound of it. "Convenient, isn't it? That they might muster friendliness when there is something to be won them. That they have a liason, they hold influence here." Who let this come to pass? Who allowed them to gain such purchase? They were like strangling vines, parasitic, set to leech all the life from those they caught in their grasp.

Her hands do not ball into fists. They stay at her sides, but there is a shake that that starts in her fingertips, and forces her to press the flats of her palms flush to her sides to still.

"I am no apostate. I am a Knight Enchanter. I am loyal to the Circles and the Chantry. Knights serve. That is who I am, not some-- some self-obsessed rebel." Her voice feels as though it might tear with the effort of it, as though the words must be peeled, dry and fragile, from her throat.