"...Hollowlands."
The word echoed in everyone's mind, bouncing off the gilded walls and settling like a heavy shroud over the assembly.
For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence. It was the kind of silence that precedes a catastrophe, where the brain struggles to process the sheer absurdity of what it just heard.
Then, the dam broke.
"Hollowlands?!"
"Your Majesty! You cannot be serious!"
"That place is a graveyard! It is a cursed zone!"
The Great Hall, usually a bastion of decorum and restrained whispers, erupted into a cacophony of panicked shouts. The nobles lost their composure completely. Dukes, Counts, and Ministers alike stepped forward, their faces pale and their voices trembling with genuine fear.
"Your Majesty, please reconsider!" a portly Duke from the Southern territories shouted, wiping sweat from his brow. "The Hollowlands have been forbidden for a reason! The atmospheric toxicity alone is enough to kill an ordinary person in hours!"
