There are people from home here, [ Claude counters, his own alarm making him sharp, harsh, but there's a true undercurrent of fear lacing his words. He does not believe he's truly in any danger, not here and not now -- but he knows how the world works. He knows how it works for him. It will take only a single slip-up for all to fall to ruin, to lose control over Leicester and thus lose the war to the Empire's forces, to then return to Almyra a wretched failure and be rightfully denied the throne, to sit by and be forced to watch as Shahid inevitably wreaks havoc over the border in the way he's always sworn to. They had him followed all the way to the Monastery. Perhaps he is not watched here in Aldrip, but the life of constant surveillance is the only one he's ever known. ] Someone who is allied with the woman who leads the opposing army. I --

[ He rubs at his forehead, taking a deep breath. He's not even this harried when they're fighting against some strange eldritch beast, he knows. This is a weakness he doesn't much like to show and he forces himself to be calm, shoulders slowly and intentionally relaxing, unclenching his jaw.

It's fine. It's just Ange. He trusts her. She will not judge him, not for this. The certainty with which he feels that feels strange, unfamiliar, and almost makes him second-guess that base instinct, but he smothers the feeling, knowing that it's his own worry and not her character that sends him down that path. He softens. ]

...I don't mind telling you. But not out in the open like this.