A few days later, Rafael was working from home.
Which, at present, meant Gregoris's mansion, and more precisely, the office Gregoris had prepared for him long before the vacation in the south, back when "temporary" had already been a polite fiction and "just in case" had meant "because you will end up here eventually."
The room was quiet in the way expensive spaces always were, insulated from the world by thick walls, soft light, and an air of meticulous order. Tall windows let in the afternoon sun, which fell across dark wood, polished metal, and the neat, threatening stacks of documents spread across Rafael's desk.
Supply chains, personnel rotations, medical provisioning, transport routes, and the delicate choreography of Shadows and imperial ceremonies trying very hard not to trip over one another. Everything had been verified, cross-verified, and re-verified by departments that trusted no one and therefore produced excellent paperwork.
Now all of it waited for his signature.
