The next morning, as dawn was just sweeping the black steel towers of Nocture with a reddish-orange glow, the main palace was still wrapped in peaceful silence. Sofia was still asleep in her private chamber after spending half the night finishing bureaucratic reports, while the palace guards kept orderly watch at their posts. In the midst of that calm, a slender shadow stepped out from the balcony of a private chamber through a nearly invisible spatial gap.
Sylvia wore a plain traveling cloak that covered half her body. Behind her, Sol followed with silent steps, while Noir had melted completely into the shadow of the Queen of Death's cloak, ready to accompany this morning's secret adventure. Without leaving a single word for the officials, apart from a short note on a table, Empress Sylvia chose to slip out of the great city's limits quietly, to avoid the lavish welcome her thirteen million citizens always gave her.
