Why did the world possess rules that nobody had thought to write down?
Elara had wondered about that occasionally when she was younger, usually after some tutor informed her that a perfectly ordinary action had somehow become improper because it had been performed beneath the wrong roof, before the wrong person, or with a degree of familiarity that noble society had decided required several months of acquaintance first. Those rules rarely appeared in etiquette manuals. They were absorbed instead through glances, pauses, whispered corrections from mothers, and the uncomfortable silence that followed whenever someone crossed a boundary everyone else had apparently agreed existed.
The answer was simple enough.
Some things did not require a written rule because everyone was expected to understand them.
Entering another person's chamber without permission was rude.
Reading private correspondence was rude.
