The air inside the waiting chamber of the east wing felt too still.
No fanfare. No music. Just the soft rustle of garments and the occasional murmur—like a storm was building beneath the fabric of formal silence.
Jesse stood with the envoy—her posture clean, shoulders held square beneath the weight of her silver-detailed cloak, her gaze forward and unreadable. Around her, the other Lorian nobles adjusted their gloves, flicked invisible dust from their cuffs, or stared into nothing with the simmering quiet of insulted pride.
No one smiled.
Not even the ones who always did.
Because every single one of them had noticed.
"We're after them," muttered the Marquis' son from Aesthwood, barely louder than a breath.
"After the main procession," said another. "After the native-born nobility. After their lowborn candidates."
The word lowborn hung in the air like ash.
And at the center of it all—Adrian Lorian stood silent.
