Ah, dear reader, if you thought the palace hummed before, you should have seen it now.
Three days. Three days until the Emperor of Nevareth wed the Fire Queen of Solmire, and the Frozen Court had transformed into something between a celebration and a battlefield. Every corridor pulsed with activity. Servants rushed past with armfuls of winter roses and ice-carved decorations. Nobles arrived daily, their carriages crunching through snow, their retinues spilling into guest wings already bursting at the seams.
The air itself felt different. Tighter. Charged with the kind of tension that comes before storms or coronations or wars.
