And there it was... silence again, sharp and expectant, like the breath before thunder.
For a fleeting moment, no one dared to move. The air was tight with disbelief, heavy with the scent of smoke and wine and impending ruin. And then... finally... someone broke.
Caelen.
It was always Caelen. The dutiful one. The hero. The man of reason who had spent his entire life holding himself together while the world around him burned. But reason has its limits, and tonight—oh, tonight—it shattered.
"Have you gone mad?"
The words tore through the ballroom like glass splintering on marble. His voice was all edges... disbelief sharpened by something dangerously close to desperation.
All eyes turned to Soren. The Emperor did not so much as blink.
"I've never been more sane."
The response was maddeningly calm. No tremor, no hesitation. Just quiet certainty, as though marriage proposals in the middle of royal abdications were the most natural of occurrences.
