Lucian walked alone for a while after leaving Alaric.
The corridor ahead stayed familiar in structure, but the rhythm of it felt slightly off, like the palace was continuing its usual movement while something inside it had shifted out of alignment.
He did not rush. He did not slow intentionally either. His pace stayed even, but his attention did not. It kept drifting back to the conversation that had just ended, not in fragments of dialogue, but in how it had behaved differently from earlier ones.
Earlier, he had been questioned.
Now, he had been considered.
That distinction stayed with him longer than expected.
Lucian's eyes moved across the passing architecture, servants crossing at a distance, doors opening and closing in controlled cycles. Nothing about the palace had changed physically, but the way he was being moved through it had.
He realized something quietly.
He was no longer being treated as an interruption.
He was being treated as a reference point.
