Chapter 100

Dawn had barely kissed the marble pillars of Altus’s grand reception hall when Cyrus stepped away from the final matters that demanded his attention. The sun’s pale fingers slipped through stained-glass windows, painting the chamber in shards of crimson and gold, yet his mind already belonged elsewhere. He had secured the signatures, offered reassurances, and tidied loose ends until even the most fastidious members of Altus’s court could object no more. Officially, no one in the court was meant to take an absence—every seat was a lynchpin in the carefully balanced machinery of power—but Cyrus had managed to obtain the tacit blessing of half its most influential voices. That slim majority rendered his leave of absence technically valid, if not exactly orthodox.

Standing beneath a carved griffin whose iron wings seemed poised to take flight, Cyrus exhaled, feeling the weight of expectation ease from his shoulders. Beside him, the ever-unflappable Thaddeus inclined his head. Thou