The great hall emptied slowly, like water draining from a fractured vessel. Once outside in a safe distance, the courtiers moved in uneasy clusters, their voices hushed yet brimming with venom.
"This pact will bind us in chains," muttered one lord, glancing over his shoulder as if afraid the walls themselves might betray him.
"It is the end of Estalis as we know it," another whispered. "The king bows to an exile, and we are expected to bow as well."
"But what choice had he? Who among us could have stopped Turik?" Another asked.
"Choice or not, he has gambled our kingdom's fate. And gambles have a way of devouring even kings."
The knights' watchful presence scattered the whispers soon enough, but the taste of dissent lingered in the air like smoke after a fire.
