The sun had long surrendered to the jagged peaks, leaving the sky a bruised purple that deepened into the ink of a northern night. In the Outer District, the air was thick with a silence that felt heavier than the falling snow.
The memorial plaza was a graveyard of light. Hundreds of ice pillars had been raised from the frozen earth, each one etched with the name of a soul lost to the demon breach.
Among them, the name of Duke Cassius glimmered in the magical blue glow, a reminder that death had no respect for rank. No torches flickered; in this hour of mourning, the raw heat of fire was forbidden.
Soren stood at the edge of the dais, his ceremonial furs white as a blizzard. When Eris ascended the steps to join him, his composure, that legendary, imperial frost, fractured. .
