Aiden stepped out of Lady Elowen's tower sanctum with the empress's crimson-sealed letter folded inside his robe pocket and the matriarch's unwilling arousal still warm and slick on the pads of his fingers. The scent of her—aged wine, storm-charged mana, reluctant heat—clung to him like a taunt. But he did not return to the master suite where Akidna lay dreaming in sated, sperm-bloated peace.
Instead he turned left down the narrower, torch-lit corridor that snaked toward the seldom-used guest wing. The passage grew dimmer, colder; portraits of long-dead Voss ancestors stared down with painted disapproval. Harlan's loud, drunken mouth had finally crossed a line that could not be ignored.
