The Grand Salon was packed, hot, and painfully loud. Zarius and Cherion had only been gone for ten minutes, but in a palace fed on gossip, ten minutes was a lifetime.
News of his departure spread through the crowd in waves. The Duke of the North had left abruptly, The Duke of the North had stepped out abruptly, needing his fiancé's help, leaving behind a sudden chill and a room full of unanswered questions.
Near the marble pillar bordering the refreshment tables, the nobles were already circling.
"Did you see his face? Pale as death," a middle-aged baroness murmured behind her painted silk fan, leaning toward her companion. "They say the illness is eating him from the inside out. He could barely stand!"
"If this keeps up, how long can he actually hold the northern border?" her husband whispered back, swirling the wine in his glass.
