Chapter 258
Twelve families. Eleven consorts’ households plus the Empress Dowager’s primary family branch. All processed through the formal channels, all given the three options in writing, all given thirty days to respond.
The language had been Elara’s. She had written it herself, four drafts before she was satisfied.
’ The regency offers three paths. First: full departure from palace residence with settlement funds, honourable release documents, and permanent severance of formal imperial connection. Second: retention of title and residential status with complete severance of political function, active signing of the inheritance restriction covenant, and transition to private household management under standard noble protocols. Third: continuation of current status under renegotiated terms subject to regency review — available only to those whose household conduct review returns a clean assessment.’
Clean. Uncomplicated. Three doors.
She had known, running the numbers, that most of them would take the money.
Not all.
Some of them had children who were genuinely imperial. Some had been in the palace long enough that leaving was not a concept they had the architecture for — the Sixth consort had said as much, quietly, over tea that Elara had actually sat down to drink. ’ I don’t know what choice looks like yet.’ Some of them had nowhere to go that was better than here, which was a structural problem she had added to the working list under a separate category: ’ post-dissolution support infrastructure.’
But some of them would stay.
And some of those who stayed would need watching.
And some of those who needed watching were currently in the process of deciding that the regent’s offer was an opportunity rather than a settlement.
She had accounted for this.
’ System ,’ she thought.