The Grand Hall did not merely exist, it demanded your absolute, unconditional surrender. Liera stood just inside the threshold, her hand trembling as she smoothed the lavender silk of a skirt she now felt was entirely too plain. The hall was a staggering, vaulted cavern of white marble and gold leaf, the ceiling so high it seemed to have its own weather system.
Above, three massive crystal chandeliers, relics from the era of the first Emperor, hummed with captured sunlight, casting a refractive, almost liquid glow over the assembly below. The floor was obsidian, polished to such a terrifying mirror-sheen that Liera felt as if she were walking on the surface of a dark, bottomless lake.
