The Long Dark was not merely a season in Nevareth; it was a siege of silence, a period where the sun became a shy, golden ghost that haunted the horizon for a mere three hours before retreating into the abyss.
Outside the palace walls, the world was a monochromatic desert of white and shadow, where temperatures plummeted to a bone-shattering cold and the wind howled with the frequency of a dying god.
To step outside was to invite the frost to claim your lungs. Yet, inside the fortress of the Imperial Palace, the atmosphere was a defiant contrast.
The fortress hummed with a forced, vibrant proximity. It was a time of long holidays and indoor bustling, where the smell of baking rye bread and pine resin filled the halls, and the stone walls sweated from the collective heat of thousands of torches and hearths.
