The kitchen did not fall silent when Cassian stepped forward. The room held its breath.
Mara had already been lifted from the floor, her blood streaked across the stone where her head had struck it. Two enforcers lay broken nearby, one curled around a ruined arm, the other struggling for breath with both hands pressed to his throat. Servants were pushed against the walls, pale and shaking, while the elders stood rigid at the far end of the room, their control still arranged neatly over a moment that had already turned against them.
Sable stood in the middle of it all with blood on her hands that was not her own.
Her shoulder throbbed under fresh binding. Her ribs burned with every breath. Mara's blood was still warm across her skin, and the reality of that sat heavier than anything else. She felt stripped raw by pain, by fury, by the sick certainty that the elders would keep doing this as long as they believed they still could.
Cassian stopped behind her.
