The room held this observation in collective silence.
Someone constantly breaking invisible restrictions. The phrase moved through Aether's mind with the specific quality of a description that fits before you can argue with it.
Another noble entered from the northern corridor — Aether clocked the family crest before the face was fully visible, and the family it represented required a moment of recalibration. One of the Empire's oldest aristocratic houses. Not affiliated with any known faction in the ways that affiliations were usually tracked. Independently powerful, with roots in the Empire that preceded several of the institutions most people considered permanent.
Even they.
