The sky stood cloudless, perfect, untouched. Almost... wrong. It was as if the heavens themselves refused to sully the day, knowing what brewed beneath.
The conference chamber was bathed in the amber glow of morning light, which filtered through stained crystal glass, painting the marble floors with fragmented hues. Yet for all its beauty, there was nothing warm about the atmosphere inside.
Tension rippled in the air. Pure discomforting tension.
A long obsidian table stretched from one end of the chamber to the other, its polished surface reflecting the stoic faces gathered around it. Henndar sat at its head, his expression carved from stone. Beside him, standing in for her empire, Kesha. Regal, untouchable, chin held high. The girl was a mirror of nobility — or at least, what it demanded her to be.
