Arion's office smelled like paper, ink, expensive coffee, and the lingering remains of a military campaign that had technically ended but still required approximately four hundred signatures to become official.
Which was why Nero was currently slumped sideways in one of the chairs across from the desk like a prince personally betrayed by bureaucracy.
"This," Nero declared, staring at the stack of documents in front of Arion, "is oppression."
Arion signed another page without looking up.
"This is administration."
"Exactly."
Outside the tall windows of the office, Alamina's capital glowed beneath pale afternoon sunlight, calmer now that the campaign season had ended successfully. The palace had shifted away from emergency operations and back toward political normalcy, which somehow felt more dangerous.
Inside the office, Hale stood near the door reviewing security notes with the exhausted posture of a man who had survived both infected beasts and Nero simultaneously.
