Now, dear reader, if you thought the courtyard drama was the end of the entertainment for the day, you clearly underestimate the capacity of palaces to generate chaos at the most inopportune moments. For what followed was not the dignified procession one might expect after such a momentous confrontation, but rather a comedy of errors that would have made the gods themselves weep with laughter.
Or perhaps just weep. The gods, I've found, have rather poor senses of humor.
The moment Soren and Eris began their ascent toward the palace entrance, the machinery of imperial hospitality lurched into motion with the kind of organized frenzy that only well-trained servants can achieve. They materialized from doorways and corridors like snow materializing from clear sky, a veritable swarm of efficiency in matching livery, each one moving with purpose born of years of service and the absolute certainty that failure to perform one's duties would result in consequences best left uncontemplated.
