The weeks after Otto announced his retirement disappeared into paperwork.
Not ordinary paperwork.
Imperial paperwork.
The kind that multiplied overnight, required three signatures for decisions everyone had already made, and somehow generated another committee every time Arion asked whether something could simply be transferred from one office to another.
By the beginning of November, Dean had stopped pretending he knew what day of the week it was without checking his schedule.
Otto's retirement had not been announced publicly yet, but the internal transition was already moving.
Council briefings shifted gradually toward Arion. Ministries that had once reported directly to Otto began including him in every consultation, and the palace legal office produced a transition calendar detailed enough to make Dean wonder whether the empire expected Otto to abdicate one individual responsibility at a time.
Military authority.
Appointments.
Foreign correspondence.
Budget approval.
