Bedtime Stories.
Hal kept his expression natural as he replied,
"The Nexus what?" He asked in what was meant to be a clueless expression.
The Empress rolled her eyes,
"The Nexus Stone. Don't play dumb, you know exactly what it is... Except of course, if you simply went to the Silver moon sect to retrieve the orb without knowing what it leads to?" She said to which Hal kept looking as clueless as he probably could.
"My apologies, your majesty, but what the heck are you talking about?" He asked and at that point, Empress had taken to ignoring his words and when she spoke next while her words were clearly directed at him, it was more like she was speaking to herself.
"Hmm, if you have no idea what the orb is, I guess that would be understandable. It would fit with my suspicions that she is just using you to get what she wants. That said, you are clearly a smart young man who comes from a powerful family so there must be something you are getting from this.