The air between the King and the Crown Prince felt ready to snap.
Then the Queen moved.
"I am delighted," she said smoothly, her voice cutting through the tension like a silk blade, "that the two of you are so eager to discuss the welfare of the kingdom. But before we continue this entirely predictable performance, may I remind you that we are standing in public for a sacred celebration, and not in the council chamber?"
Her tone was light, almost amused, and deliberately nonsensical enough to break the momentum of the argument.
A few nobles blinked.
The crowd below, only seeing the smiles, cheered again sensing the royal family still united enough to perform civility.
The Queen smiled more brightly, as though she had not just rescued the balcony from the edge of a political quarrel.
"How fortunate," she said, turning her gaze first to the King and then to Theron, "that both of you are dressed beautifully enough to survive one another."
For a split second, nobody spoke.
