The pale blue archway of the Astral Gateway pulsed with a deep, resonant hum, casting long, elegant shadows across the frozen marble as the Winter King walked slowly down the Thousand Golden Steps with his Chief Enforcer right by his side.
The vast plaza of the Citadel was alive with the disciplined, quiet focus of a cosmic army preparing for its very first interstellar march. A thousand Sand Wyrm cavalrymen sat tall upon their restless black warhorses, their void-bone scimitars resting easily at their hips, while two thousand of Kaelen's Star-Forged veterans stood in perfect, unyielding phalanxes, their heavy armor glinting softly under the eternal silver aurora.
Zara the Unbroken sat casually atop her massive stallion at the absolute front of the cavalry column, casually tossing a polished iron coin into the air and catching it while she waited for her sovereign to reach the bottom of the stairs.
