"Then speak plainly." Yel urged, his voice quiet but edged with genuine interest. "What drives your cause now?"
The Float Admiral was sitting tighter and tighter in his chair. He too was learning from the conversation. He was being gifted with precious information willfully given by the Duke.
Arthur drew a slow breath, noble charisma suffusing his tone, dignified yet forceful. "My grievance began with Tashran's cruelty. Yet that kingdom's atrocities reach far beyond my own flesh. Tens of thousands of rainfolk were enslaved, their lives bartered away to fuel Tashran's greed. Men and women stripped of names, light, rights, futures, forced beneath the earth until their blood seeped into green-lined tunnels. Children traded to Rainlet in exchange for political favor, women sold into servitude, their lives reduced to commodities."
