The banquet resumed—though "resumed" was the wrong word.
It shifted.
As if some unseen chord had been released from tension.
The presence of Rowen Drayke and Varen Drakov—two of the most formidable names in the Empire—had not only neutralized the weight around Lucavion... it had reversed it.
No one said it aloud, of course.
But eyes wandered more freely now. The whispers carried less poison. And those who had been avoiding Lucavion earlier suddenly remembered they had things to discuss near him. As if proximity to him wasn't social risk anymore—but social currency.
Thalor noticed it first.
A subtle pivot, he noted. The knives retract. The masks return.
One minute, Lucavion was the anomaly. The interloper who'd upset every faction with nothing but wit and a bastard's will.
The next, he was—
Still the same.
But acknowledged.
Cassiar raised his glass in a half-toast toward Thalor, a knowing smile playing at his lips. "You feel that?"
Thalor didn't look at him. "Feel what?"
