The palace looked the same from the outside, with pale stone, glass-reinforced angles, and ether wards laid so neatly into the architecture they'd become part of the Empire's aesthetic. From the inside, it felt different lately.
Calmer.
Not safe, Rafael wasn't sentimental, but calmer in the way a place became when the year's catastrophes had already had their feast and moved on. The floors still hummed with the ether grid beneath. Guards still watched everything. But the alarms had quieted. The corridors no longer carried that tight, hunted urgency.
Routine, the palace pretended, as if it was brave enough to believe in it.
Rafael passed through security with the kind of efficiency that came from being repeatedly searched by people who knew exactly who he was and still refused to be sloppy. His folder was scanned, his biometrics verified, and his presence logged. He kept his expression pleasant enough to be civil and sharp enough to discourage conversation.
