The gala ended without a hitch. Everyone looked pleased - polite smiles, satisfied sighs, the kind of public harmony Palatine loved to sell as proof of stability.
Even Emperor Otto congratulated Sirius on his professionalism. It wasn't empty praise. Otto hinted - carefully, with the elegance of a ruler who knew how to say a warning without calling it one - that he hadn't missed Caelan's history of stalling, and that he knew his son well enough to understand why Dean had reasons to doubt him.
Arion, after all, had always been more at home on a battlefield than in a ballroom.
Two days later, the 'blessing' happened.
Caelan died in his sleep, so clean and quiet it felt almost unreal. When Sirius heard, he laughed. Not because death was funny, but because the ending was so right it finally loosened something in his chest.
At last, he was free to rule. The weight on his shoulders lifted in a single breath.
