The heavy oak door to Elara's office didn't just open; it flew back against the wall with a sharp, echoing *crack*.
Mahir stood in the doorway, his chest heaving, his dark beast-kin ears pinned flat against his messy hair in a display of pure, unadulterated fury. His tail was lashing violently behind him, sweeping left and right like a whip. Directly behind him stepped Ken. While Ken wasn't snarling like Mahir, his usual lazy, arrogant smirk was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, dangerous stillness that made the temperature in the room feel like it had dropped ten degrees.
They had clearly bypassed the guards, Demerti, and every protocol in the palace the moment the rumors from the administrative wing reached their ears.
Elara didn't even look up from the portfolio she was analyzing. She merely dipped her quill into the inkwell, her hand steady. "You are disrupting the filing system."
