For the first time in generations, the Empire did not wake with noise.
No bells rang to summon laborers.
No criers shouted decrees from street corners.
No carriages thundered across marble avenues carrying nobles to their daily rituals of vanity and treachery.
Even the birds seemed uncertain.
The capital breathed—but quietly, shallowly, like a patient who had learned that any sudden movement might be fatal.
From gutter to spire, everyone knew why.
Behind the sealed gates of the High Emperial Palace, two forces sat across from one another that had never before been allowed to share the same air without war following.
Not emissaries.
Not councils.
Not intermediaries who could later be blamed and sacrificed.
The Empress of the Empire.
The Prophet of the Church.
Elizabeth Valewind.
Lucifer Aurelian.
Power and faith. Crown and scripture. Steel and belief.
