The night settled over the palace like a heavy, velvet shroud, muffling the distant sounds of the city and leaving the corridors of the imperial wing bathed in the flickering, amber light of wall-mounted sconces.
Soren walked with a measured stride, the conversation with Aldwin still vibrating in his mind like the low, persistent hum of a struck bell.
Behind him lay the reckoning, the naming of the pattern, the terrifying logic of the gears, and the haunting imagery of Eris turning to ash in a life that should not have been hers.
He carried the weight of it in the set of his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw. He had already made the preparations; before this walk began, he had sent the orders.
The expedition to the jagged borders where Solmire met Nevareth was no longer a theoretical suggestion.
The ruined temples, the silent stones that held the secrets of the fire mages, they were his destination.
