The floating palace rose above the clouds in gold, glass, and pale marble, its curved bridges hanging over endless mist while crystal lamps burned like captured stars. Beautiful from a distance, untouchable from below, and today guarded like a fortress.
Beyond another pair of massive obsidian doors waited the Council Chamber of the Sages.
Unlike the chamber used by the Eight Great Families, this room was built for the Ten Elders themselves. Ten seats formed a perfect circle around the center, each one carved from dark stone and marked with thin silver lines. In the middle waited an open space reserved for visitors, petitioners, criminals, witnesses, and those brought before the Council to be judged or heard.
At that moment, eleven people were inside.
Ten sat around the chamber in black robes edged with silver runes, their presence pressing against the senses of anyone who looked at them for too long. The robes hid much, but not enough to erase the weight each of them carried.
