The Crown Archivist didn't stay quiet.
Three days after receiving the page, he filed a motion for royal audit.
He did it publicly.
"I do not presume guilt. I request clarity."
The gallery gasped. One minister stood. Another walked out. A third narrowed his eyes and began scribbling notes.
That was the sound of a system being forced awake.
Reina arrived late. Draped in ivory, ringed with silence.
"What we are witnessing," she said, "is not justice. It is desperation disguised as principle."
"And what we are witnessing," I answered, "is power disguising itself as silence."
The air shifted. Tension moved like a wave across the chamber. A scribe's pen snapped. A clerk dropped his docket.
That moment was the crack.
Some turned toward her. Some toward me.
And some—finally—stood on their own.
One noblewoman cleared her throat and said, "Then perhaps it's time we start reading the ledgers ourselves."