King Antonias stood in the doorway.
Blood covered his nose and streaked down from a cut on his forehead. His hair was disordered. One side of his embroidered collar had been torn loose, and his face was red with drunken fury.
The guards beside the doors stood behind him, their hands outstretched as though they had tried and failed to stop him.
As the crowd parted away, Antonias's eyes fixed immediately on Ulrich.
Then on Kaliantha.
The music faltered.
Albert stopped mid-step with Camellia still in his hand.
Antonias staggered into the ballroom, blood dripping onto the floor as he pointed toward Ulrich.
"Ulrich," Antonias said.
His voice carried across the stunned hall.
"You bastard."
He continued forward with an unsteady gait, drunk and perhaps still dizzy from whatever had happened to him. Blood trickled from his nose, and his face was flushed a deep, ugly red beneath the mess of his hair.
He looked dreadful.
Yet he did not appear to care.
