A few days passed the way the Empire always passed through aftermath, by pretending it had meant to survive all along.
The Capital still pulsed, still hummed with ether in the bones of the city, and still ran on quiet miracles no one paused to admire anymore: streetlines lit by blue-veined conduits beneath polished stone, public trams gliding soundlessly on ether rails, and towers that drank power from the grid like it was air. Even the manor's windows carried the faint, almost imperceptible vibration of it, the steady thrum of a world that didn't stop just because people had bled, lied, married, nearly died, and then gone back to work.
But the frantic edge was gone.
The year's main events had already detonated. The scandals had already found their scapegoats. The council had already sat through the worst sessions, the ones where the air smelled like exhaustion and everyone spoke politely because screaming would've been easier.
