The Emperor took a second glance at his hand. He didn't lift it high or display it like a trophy, nothing that theatrical. It was a small, instinctive check, the kind a man makes when something feels wrong even if it doesn't look wrong.
His fingers flexed once, slow and controlled, and the smear of blood across his skin caught the chandelier light in a dull, wet sheen. It didn't drip. It didn't run. It just sat there, stubbornly present, and the skin beneath it felt wrong in a way that didn't require a wound to announce itself. The hall noticed anyway.
Bodies stiffened in place. Breath paused in throats. The nobles' eyes tracked without tracking, glancing and snapping away, all of them aware that the Emperor was feeling the aftertaste of contact with something that wasn't supposed to be handled casually.
