The Victory Ball was no longer a celebration half way through, it felt like an endurance test.
The music of the fifth set swelled, an arrangement of strings that filled the Great Hall with a forced, manic cheer.
Beneath the gold-leafed rafters, the heat was becoming oppressive. The heat of three hundred bodies, a thousand beeswax candles, and the suffocating pressure of a peace that cost too much to maintain.
Across the room, the center of gravity had shifted.
Elias was drinking. It was subtle at first—a refilled glass of dark vintage, then another. He wasn't staggering; he was glowing.
The rigid, marble-cool exterior he had maintained for weeks was beginning to liquefy. His movements were becoming loose, his gestures slightly too wide. Courtiers watched him with a mixture of fascination and awe. The Anchor was drifting, and the sight was more captivating than the King himself.
