The wind in the Imperial Capital always carried an indescribable chill, especially lately.
News of Joseph's beheading and the purge of the Caradi Family had spread throughout the Empire's noble circles in barely half a day.
Rumors ran rampant in the streets, while banquets and salon gatherings in official residences grew unusually quiet.
Everyone discussed the same thing in hushed voices: the emperor had gone too far this time.
"They had five generations of noble standing, after all... and he uprooted them without so much as a word?"
"Ah, Kaladi... they were never people the emperor had raised up himself."
"Don't forget, this is already the third great noble house to be purged this year."
"Isn't it the same old routine... 'balancing power'? By the time he's finished balancing it, no one but the emperor will have a firm footing."
No one dared criticize the emperor openly, but beneath that thin veneer of respectful language lay fear and wariness they could not conceal.
The old nobles understood that this was a purge carried out by another's hand. Under the pretext of restoring order, the emperor was uprooting the old powers that were not of his own making.
And this was hardly the first time he had used that tactic.
In recent years, behind almost every scandal, coup, rebellion, and case of corruption,
an old noble could be found implicated, dragged into the affair, and finally swept off the board of power without a sound.
Meanwhile, one Knight or Frontier Army commander after another was elevated into the ranks of the emperor's trusted nobles, granted titles and fiefs.
The lofty justification was: "To restore the balance of power and prevent regional separatism."
In reality, the gears of centralization were already grinding apart old houses with roots stretching back centuries.
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