The coronation did not conclude the mourning; it transformed it. Black banners remained draped along the palace corridors, but now they were edged with silver thread, a subtle acknowledgment that grief and continuity could coexist. The city observed the rites with solemn discipline. Bells rang at measured intervals, not to summon crowds, but to mark the passing of hours in which an empire recalibrated itself under a new sovereign.
Empress Celestia allowed the rituals to proceed without embellishment. She knelt at the tomb, spoke the prescribed words, and withdrew when custom demanded. She neither rushed the process nor lingered theatrically. The restraint itself became a message: the empire was not pausing indefinitely, nor was it erasing what had come before.
On the fourth day of mourning, she convened her first imperial council.
