The confrontation erupted in the most public possible venue, the grand corridor connecting the palace's main ceremonial chambers, where dozens of courtiers and visiting dignitaries conducted the empire's daily business under the watchful eyes of imperial guards and countless observers.
Lord Thornwick of the Moon Faction strode through the marble-columned space with barely contained fury, his western county attire marking him as an outsider among the more ornately dressed capital nobility. His weathered features, more suited to frontier command than court politics, bore the expression of a man who had heard enough diplomatic double-speak to last several lifetimes.
