The morning sun crested the high, jagged walls of the subterranean canyon that housed the Deep Earth Oasis, casting long, golden shafts of light across the sandstone courtyards of the Royal Palace. The air was already beginning to shimmer with the promise of the Tagor Desert's blistering heat, but within the secure walls of the palace's innermost courtyard, the temperature was regulated by ancient, thrumming arrays.
Yet, an entirely different kind of heat was radiating from the center of the courtyard.
Alaric sat upon a hastily conjured throne of smooth obsidian, his broad shoulders relaxed, his black robes open at the chest to reveal the sculpted planes of his torso. He was hard at work, his eyes glowing with a faint, violet luminescence as he manipulated several floating cores of high-grade spirit stones. But he was not working alone, nor was he working without distraction.
Straddling his thighs, facing him with an expression of pure, glazed devotion, was Queen Cai Wei.
