Chapter 1

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:53:13 +0000

The dining hall at Rathore Mansion did not invite you in. It announced you small, temporary, easily forgotten. Forty feet of coffered ceiling, sandstone pillars carved with hunting scenes, a table that seated twenty-two and was set, this morning, for six. The chandeliers were Venetian. The silence was not. It had weight here, the specific gravity of a family that had built its fortune on things that didn't appear in annual reports, and knew better than to speak carelessly inside its own walls.