Solae was silent for a long moment as Rene bolted upright and began to string together a theory that gave reason to the inexplicable murder of his beloved. For the briefest of moments her eyes drifted shut and she had to force them back open again so as to not be a terrible fiancee ignoring very important deductions. She would have loved to say her investigative nature, dedication to imperial stability, and unwavering devotion to unraveling the mystery were the only reasons she remained awake, but she would be lying to herself. The loss of tactile reassurance, warmth, and comfort, albeit brief, were akin to being dumped with cold water. Grumbling internally she did her best to pay attention. A considerable amount of effort was put forth to not stare at his jaw, his cheekbones, the way his shirt hung off his shoulders, the way he had tousled his hair after his shower, or physically attractive attributes. She couldn't have done anything if she wanted to, not in her sorry state, but she was could admire the view while her higher functions frizzled in and out erratically.

"I don't like it," the diplomat announced as she pressed her lips together in a sign of displeasure. What he said made enough sense. There was never any doubt in his mind that he was innocent and from what information she had about the crime, they were not dealing with anyone amateur. The high-profile target, sophisticated methodology, fabricating evidence to pin the murder on someone else, all while leaving no trace who the real culprit with smacked of a professional. Although she had surmised as much when he initially told her about the killing, that didn't necessarily eliminate suspects. Capella was laden with the wealthy, titled, and privileged, all of whom had a retinue of individuals capable of committing unsavory acts (to put it mildly). Differentiating between whether it was an ex-military attache from a duke or a covert assassin marketed as a mercenary from an earl was the real challenge. Their best way to find the guilty party was uncovering what specific motivation there was to slay his ex-fiancee in the first place.

"We haven't stopped Tan, we've only slowed him down a little," she sighed as she turned her head into the pillow. "We can't possibly save the empire from a huge conspiracy." It sounded pessimistic, but Solae didn't fancy herself a hero. Perhaps when she was really, really little she had dreams of becoming the savior of the interstellar empire just as she had dreamed about being a professional dancer, discovering a long lost prince, or learning magic from a fairy. Much had changed between then and now. By the time she was an adult her ambitions were more realistic and involved maintaining her financial stability, getting married, starting a family, reviving dead languages, and being appointed as an ambassador that would forge important peace treatises of mutual cooperation.

The longer she was with him, the more convinced she was that Rene was indefatigable. When he had been accused of callously taking the life of his lover, he had found an avenue to reinvent himself, and thrived. When New Concordia was attacked by one of their own, he had managed to survive when all the marines were ambushed, and then even saved her. He was resilient in a way that was hard for her to understand. Others, like her, would roll for the punches only so long before they felt defeated and demoralized. For a moment she wondered if Alric or Rene's late mother were the source of his unwavering strength, or if it was an unexpected result of the combination thereof.

The silver-tongued linguist was more deflated. Rather than reducing the suspects, they had increased their number exponentially, for it would be exceedingly difficult to flush out insurgents in a political coup, as a common strategy was that some remained 'undercover' until a change of power had successfully occurred. Instead of taking on Duke Tan, their duty obligated them to take on Duke Tan and numerous allies, to wage war, to save and secure the Stellar Empire from those that wished to do it irreparable harm. Solae was not a soldier. In normal circumstances she would make first contact and provide advice to leaders as to the best way to compromise on cultural traditions for the sake of trade. Being flung into the line of fire was hard enough. Now that the only way to restore Rene's reputation and clear his good name was to triumph over their enemies completely felt impossible, especially since she hadn't even won over a major ally! The Kalderi were still uncertain about her and one moody teenager and two Syshin bodyguards would not save her from Tan's clutches if he got close enough.

"This isn't what I wanted," she moped quietly, her voice muffled by the synthetic fiber of the pillow she had buried her face into. It didn't seem fair, and, drugged, tired, and reeling from a traumatic event, their ominous discussion made her want to reject reality. She wanted to run away where there weren't guns pointed at her, enslaved races, and danger around every corner that could result in everyone she knew dying again.