The throne room of the Northern Palace had never felt so vast, nor so empty.
The high vaulted ceilings, usually echoing with the bustle of petitioners and the sharp clatter of armored guards, were now filled with a heavy, suffocating silence.
It was the morning before the trial, the eve of a reckoning many years in the making, and the air was thick with the scent of unlit incense and cold stone.
High Priestess Serah sat in a high-backed chair to the left of the dais, her white silk robes draped like fresh snow over the dark wood.
Beside her, the three Senior Magistrates whispered in low, rhythmic tones, their fingers nervously tracing the seals on their legal scrolls.
Caelen stood near the tall windows, his gaze fixed on the grey horizon, his posture that of a man expecting a storm.
A handful of minor nobles hovered in the periphery, their presence more an act of self-preservation than loyalty.
They were all waiting for word that never came.
