To have that abandonment flung in her face stings, and Magni is silent as she swallows past a dry throat, struggles to comprehend that her Lakshmi would seek to wound her so specifically. When next she speaks, her voice is soft. “I told you once that I did not wish for Demetria any longer. That she had thought the way to happiness was to betray and hurt.” Her voice stays steady, barely. ““You sought humiliation in this. You looked for it readily, at the first opportunity. If I leave Talonhold then anywhere I go will be the lands of someone my family or this land has some connection to, and you can make— make whatever connection you desire to see, or believe.”

Her shoulders drop, and she starts to turn away.

“If you valued reason and truth as much as pride,” don’t, don’t “then you would see that by believing it you humiliated yourself. And that by— trying to hurt me with humiliation and scorn you only bring yourself lower.”

The words are hard to say; she isn’t a famous talker, and saying hurtful things to Lakshmi goes against the grain completely.