Celebration Part 2

Dinner quickly settled into the comfortable rhythm Ernest had almost forgotten existed.

Servants moved quietly around the table, replacing empty dishes with fresh ones while conversations flowed naturally from one topic to another. Unlike the meetings he attended almost every day, there were no ledgers spread across polished wood, no engineering drawings waiting to be approved, and certainly no ministers debating budgets measured in hundreds of millions of riels.

For one evening, everyone had agreed without saying so aloud that business would remain outside the dining hall.

Anna was the first to break the silence after everyone had finished their soup.

"So..."

She looked directly at Ernest.

"Tell us honestly."

Ernest smiled.

"About what?"

"Were you nervous today?"

That question caught him slightly off guard.

"Nervous?"

"Standing before the king, the prime minister, and the entire Royal Council."