The absence of the Crown Prince left a vacuum in the Imperial Palace, and the Emperor immediately sought to fill it with his own wounded ego.
Less than forty-eight hours after Aeron rode south with the Silver Legion, Kaia was summoned to the Emperor's private audience chamber. She did not wear the soft, accommodating pastels of a daughter-in-law. She wore a high-collared gown of midnight-blue velvet, the heavy silver Sun-Ring gleaming on her left hand like a warning.
She walked in with her head held high, flanked by Captain Silas Thorne, who had taken his orders to shadow her quite literally.
The Emperor was seated behind his massive desk, his face flushed with the residual anger of a man who had lost control of his own military.
"You summoned me, Your Majesty," Kaia said, offering a curtsey that was perfectly polite and entirely devoid of submission.
"I did," the Emperor snapped, waving a hand to dismiss his scribes. He glared at Silas. "Leave us, Captain."
