The kitchen did not fall silent when Cassian stepped forward; the room seemed to hold one breath across every body inside it, as if even the stone understood that the balance had changed.
Mara had already been lifted from the floor, her blood streaked across the stone where her head had struck.
Two enforcers lay broken nearby, one curled around a ruined arm, the other dragging air in harsh, shallow pulls with both hands pressed to his throat.
Servants had been 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 beneath fresh binding and her ribs burned with every breath.
Mara's blood was still warm across her skin, and that reality sat heavier than anything else.
