*Blink*
That was all. She looked at her, blinking, otherwise perfectly still. Her hands stayed folded in her lap, and the golden light in them didn't so much as flicker, because the Hearth Valkyrie had leveled to 77 in a single afternoon during a battle that made Vanessa Sloan's decade of gates look like sparring practice, and after standing before the Claimant, the killing intent of an A-tier striker washed over her like a warm breeze over a cathedral wall.
Vanessa's eyes widened. The non-reaction landed harder than any counter could have, because she had committed everything to that wave and the woman across the table had simply... not noticed.
Then the tent went cold.
