With Helena's convoy already beyond Crete, a hush of peril settled over the Palatine. Constantine, entrenched in formulas for harbor dredges and edicts on provincial grain quotas, sensed neither the dark glances among chamberlains nor the sudden hush whenever Fausta's litter crossed a corridor. Charts and ledgers were safe terrain; hearts were not. Jealousy and fear—quintessential human solvents—had long since been filtered from his own calculations, yet they rippled unchecked through everyone around him.
Fausta struck when his attention bent eastward, sifting warnings of Sassanid restlessness. She burst into his study without escort, hair unpinned, silken stola torn as though by rough hands. Theatrical perfection. She collapsed before the desk, weeping so hard the parchments trembled beneath her breath.
"My lord… I dared keep silent, but silence has become treason to our house."
Constantine's single eye narrowed. "Name the danger."
