The transition from the icy, silent doom of the provinces to the Imperial Palace was jarring, a sharp cut from a funeral dirge to a lively, if somewhat frantic, symphony.
Within the colossal stone walls of the capital, the existential dread felt by the broken network members in the north was replaced by a deceptive, sun-drenched ignorance.
Despite the Long Dark stretching its obsidian fingers across the sky for twenty-two hours a day, the palace was a hive of warmth and triviality.
The irony was a thick, sweet poison; the nobility toasted to a winter that was already hollowing out their coffers, happily unaware that the foundation of their world was being systematically dismantled while they debated the vintage of the evening's wine.
Life in the palace continued with a surface-level normalcy that bordered on the absurd.
