The morning air atop the Sanctum of the Sanguine Moon did not carry the scent of winter anymore. Instead, it was perfumed with the heady, sweet fragrance of the Dawn-Lilies—blooms that had defied the natural laws of the North to carpet the obsidian slopes in a riot of red-gold and sapphire. They were the physical manifestation of the balance I had brought to this land, a land that had once been a graveyard of salt and shadow.
I stood on the edge of the Sovereign's Terrace, my hands resting on the cool stone railing. The sun, no longer a bruised magenta or a sickly grey, was a brilliant, searing gold. It struck the scales on my forearms, turning the red-gold plates into a shimmering mosaic of liquid fire. I looked at my reflection in the polished obsidian of the wall.
