The darkness inside the palace seemed to have weight, pressing against them as Leon and Seraphine moved forward with deliberate caution. Their footsteps echoed in the vast entrance hall, the sound bouncing off walls they could barely make out in the gloom. As their eyes adjusted, details emerged from the shadows – and with them, more questions than answers.
More statues lined the interior hallways, but these were different from the ones outside. Where the courtyard statues had stood in grand, ceremonial poses, these figures were frozen in moments of daily life. A servant carried an invisible tray down a corridor that would never end. A scribe sat at a stone desk, quill raised as if about to write words that would never flow. Guards stood at their posts with expressions of bored vigilance, unaware they would maintain that watch for eternity.
