Chapter 55: Chapter 55: The Former Emperor

Sirius did what he always did at events like this.

He became the Emperor.

It wasn’t a performance so much as a switch – one that slid into place the moment he entered a crowded room and accepted, without emotion, that everyone would be watching him for signs of weakness, softness, hesitation. He gave them none. He moved through the party with measured ease, spoke to everyone who mattered, smiled at the right moments, listened just long enough to make people feel seen, and walked away before they could mistake access for intimacy.

The ballroom glittered around him, music and chandeliers and carefully arranged joy. Dean and Arion were the center of it, whether the nobles liked it or not.

Sirius allowed the celebration to look effortless because Palatine required the illusion. He offered congratulations that sounded sincere and unthreatening. He shook hands. He accepted bows. He spoke about ’stability’ and ’unity’ and ’historic partnerships’ while his mind tracked every shift in the room the way a soldier tracked terrain.

He saw Caelan before Caelan came close.

That wasn’t difficult. Caelan still moved like a man who thought the floor belonged to him.

The former Emperor cut across the edge of the crowd, immaculate and cold, his expression set in that dignified mask he wore when he wanted to look like he was above everything. He passed behind Sirius’s shoulder.

Barely acknowledged him with the faintest shift of attention, one that said ’I am still here,’ and then he angled away, moving toward the darker side of the room as if he couldn’t stand to be too close to the celebration.

’Still angry,’

Sirius thought.

Dean hadn’t worn the collar Caelan had sent. The clause had been rewritten. The heirloom had been rejected.

Caelan had been told no… and Caelan did not forgive being told no.

Sirius kept his face neutral as Caelan drifted away, but his attention stayed locked.

Something was… off.

It wasn’t obvious. Caelan’s posture was still straight. His clothes were still perfect. His expression was still controlled. But there was a tension under it that didn’t look like rage. It looked like discomfort, like his body wasn’t cooperating with the image he was trying to project.

Caelan’s hand lifted once toward his collar, then dropped again too quickly, as if he’d remembered he was being watched. His gaze flicked across the room in a way that wasn’t strategic.

It was searching.

Sirius watched him for another beat, trying to name the feeling. As if something invisible had gotten under Caelan’s skin and refused to leave.

Sirius’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

He couldn’t put his finger on it, and that was what made it dangerous.

He shifted his focus smoothly, finished a conversation with a duke who would have sold his own bloodline for better trade terms, smiled at the right moment, then excused himself with impeccable timing.

His eyes found Ethan across the room, his consort standing with a small cluster of people he didn’t particularly like, smiling politely while his gaze remained sharp enough to cut. Ethan met Sirius’s eyes and raised his brows a fraction, silent question.

Sirius gave the smallest shake of his head.

’Not now.’

Ethan’s expression tightened for half a second, then smoothed again, sliding in the image of the emperor’s consort.

Sirius scanned the crowd again and then Trevor appeared.

Trevor moved through the room with the calm inevitability of a man who didn’t need permission to exist anywhere in Palatine.

His suit was immaculate. His posture was composed. His eyes were not warm.

He was here for one reason.

And Sirius felt the room register it, even if no one could name it.

Trevor’s gaze found Sirius.

Held.

Sirius’s expression didn’t change, but something in his chest tightened.

Trevor crossed the distance without haste, stopped at the edge of Sirius’s personal space as if the boundary was a courtesy, and inclined his head with the bare minimum of respect.

“Your Majesty,” Trevor said.

“Duke Fitzgeralt,” Sirius replied smoothly.

Trevor’s eyes flicked once toward the side of the room where Caelan had retreated, then back to Sirius. “He’s still here.”

“He is,” Sirius said quietly.

Trevor’s mouth tightened by a fraction. “And he’s displeased.”

Sirius’s gaze stayed steady. “He can survive displeasure.”

Trevor’s eyes sharpened. “Can he?”

The question landed too cleanly.

Sirius didn’t let his expression change. He couldn’t. Not here, not in the middle of a room full of people trained to read an Emperor’s face like scripture.

But his voice dropped, clipped and careful. “Trevor, what do you know?”

Trevor didn’t look away. He didn’t soften the answer to make it easier to swallow.

“That he doesn’t have much left,” he said. “Arion dealt with it. And no one will be able to prove it.”

For a fraction of a second, Sirius’s breath stalled.

Not because he hadn’t suspected Arion could do something unforgivable with a polite smile. Sirius had met Arion’s eyes often enough to know exactly what kind of man lived behind them.

But because Trevor was saying it out loud, in the middle of a party, while champagne flowed and music pretended the world was harmless.

Sirius forced himself to inhale normally. “How do you know?”

Trevor’s gaze flicked, briefly, toward Caelan’s position in the room, like tracking a target.

“I visited him,” Trevor said simply. “After the delegation. After I found out about the collars.”

Sirius’s jaw tightened. “The same thing I felt?”

Trevor’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. He hummed once in confirmation. “Yes. But I can feel it better.” His gaze flicked briefly toward Caelan, and then returned to Sirius. “Give it time, Your Majesty.”

Trevor inclined his head and stepped away, melting back into the crowd like he’d never been there at all.

Sirius remained still for a beat, glass steady in his hand, face imperial and unreadable. He watched Caelan shift again, then Sirius exhaled slowly through his nose, the closest thing to a crack in his composure.

“Took him long enough,” he murmured.

The words were quiet enough that only the air heard them.

But Ethan, because Ethan always heard what mattered, appeared at Sirius’s side as if he’d been summoned by the shape of the sentence rather than the sound.

His smile was still polite. His eyes were not.

“What took who long enough?” Ethan asked softly.

Sirius didn’t look at him immediately. He kept his gaze on the ballroom, on the movement of bodies and politics and pretend joy.

“Not here,” Sirius said.

Ethan’s brow lifted a fraction. “So it’s something I’m going to hate.”

Sirius finally turned his head, just slightly. “No. You will love it.”

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