The training hall the following morning lacked its usual thunderous vitality. It wasn't that the energy was gone, but rather that the air felt thin, hollowed out by the absence of the household's two central pillars.
Aurelia had not come. The rumor mill, though silent in public, whispered venomously through the kitchens and barracks: she was personally overseeing Theo's continued discipline in the isolation chambers, the cold stone cells reserved for those whose sins required more than mere words.
Nobody asked for details, and nobody dared hope to hear them.
Theo was not present either; his absence was a screaming silence that required no explanation to anyone who had stood in that corridor.
Rex commanded the session, with Iris at his side. They divided the unit's drills between them with the seamless, mechanical efficiency that Aurelia usually shared with Rex.
