There was something different about the way Odysseus smiled this time.

It was too easy. Too practiced.

You had seen what he did to Palamedes. What Diomedes had. But this—this was not the same.

No forged letter, no silver-tongued tale of treachery. No. He had learned.

The Euboean's death had left a stain, however faint. A whisper at the edges of conversation, an uneasy pause when Odysseus’ name was spoken in certain company. He would not risk another.

This time, the hands that struck would not be his own.

“You misunderstand,” he said now, voice warm, measured, like an old friend. “I’ve done nothing.”

And that was the brilliance of it. He had done nothing.

He had planted no evidence, wove no lies. He had simply arranged things. Shifted the pieces. Whispered the right words in the right ears, a careful hand brushing against the scales of fate.

A contest, perhaps, where the odds were not so evenly stacked. A debt called in by men whose patience had run dry.

He had not touched the blade. He had only pointed.

And when they came for you, when the ground tilted and the world folded in on itself, when the net drew tight and the walls closed in—Odysseus would only shrug. A bystander. A mere witness to misfortune.

Except you knew.

You saw the slight parting of his lips, the way he waited, expectant. The flicker of satisfaction that crossed his face when the trap snapped shut.

And something in you broke.

You spat profanities, and there was no mistaking the venom in your voice. You did this!

Odysseus only sighed. You make it sound so ugly, {{user}}. I have done nothing but watch. Is it my fault if fate has turned against you?

"Prove it." He said. You stepped forward, fists trembling at your sides, but he only lifted a hand, lazy, dismissive. A show for the onlookers, if there were any. Let them see him as the reasonable one, the calm against the storm of your fury. "You can't, can you? Because there is seldom claim to prove. I merely suggested a course, and you—well. You walked it."