After Lise's speech, the room began to disperse, the students filtering out with murmurs of excitement about the upcoming tournament.
The members of the Council of Ten, however, stayed behind in the council room, an entirely different atmosphere settling over us now that the formalities were out of the way.
I stretched my arms above my head, letting out a small groan as I tried to shake off the tension from sitting through the long meeting. Zaya was the first to break the silence, lounging back in her chair with a smug grin on her face.
"Well, wasn't that a rousing speech?" Zaya quipped, giving Lise a mock salute. "Truly inspirational. I almost teared up."
Lise shot her a glare that was so sharp it could have cut through stone. "If you didn't want to give the speech, Zaya, you could've just said so instead of orchestrating that ridiculous rock-paper-scissors debacle."
