The next few days blurred into a slow grind of meetings, reports, and endless diplomacy.
The palace, though glittering as ever from the outside, simmered quietly beneath its polished surface—rumors coiling through the halls about the poisoned honey, about who would be next, and about how long it would take for the Emperor's wrath to fall. Nobles whispered behind silk fans and carved doors, and no one dared breathe too loudly when Gabriel passed.
He had become the storm's eye—silent, still, and impossible to ignore.
Gabriel, meanwhile, buried himself in work.
Or tried to.
He sat behind the wide desk in his new office—a chamber off the Imperial Wing, paneled in soft ash wood and heavy with the scent of clean parchment and faint Ether—staring down a man who looked two wrong words away from wetting himself.
The young official fidgeted, sweating lightly in his fine jacket despite the pleasant chill of the room. His hands twisted a folder Gabriel hadn't given him permission to open.
