#Chapter 131: Spring Festival Preparation

Ember The council chamber is full enough to make silence feel crowded. Every advisor, every noble with enough rank to matter, every courtier who has spent the last month pretending not to stare at me has arrived with the alert stillness of people who smell blood in politics and are waiting to see whose it will be. I stand beside Kaine in my formal guard uniform and keep my face professionally blank while Lord Morris watches me from the second row as if my presence beside the Crown Prince is an arithmetic error he intends to correct. King Alexander doesn't give him the chance, his voice cutting cleanly through the waiting room. "The Spring Festival will proceed as tradition dictates, and the royal family will appear on the palace balcony to receive the people's blessings." The pause that follows is thin and sharp. Morris rises halfway from his seat, careful enough to sound respectful and eager enough to betray himself. "Your Majesty, when you say the royal family, do you mean