“Seize him.”
The command hit the corridor like an iron threshold dropping. It didn’t belong to the herald or the captain I could see; it came from the doorway, from a voice that carried more authority than any guard’s bark. It was short, hard, and left no room for the courtesy the palace usually demanded. For a heartbeat the corridor held its breath. Servants froze with ladles half-raised; a pageboy stopped mid-step, eyes wide. The word moved through the crowd like a living thing: seize, seize, seize. It meant arrest. It meant accusation. It meant a man’s body would be grabbed and shown, and the court would decide what to do with him.
A guard reached for me without ceremony, hand landing on the edge of my sleeve. His grip was firm and practiced, the touch of someone who had done this bef
