The carriage carried the red-clad House leader away from the capital in total silence.
None of her attendants dared a single word while the palace walls slid behind the last hill.
She sat beside the window with one finger tapping the armrest in a slow rhythm.
The glass handed her back a face the court called beautiful and she called useful.
King Atheron's warning lived on in every lowered gaze around her, herself included.
He had shown the assembled Houses the full pressure of a twenty-Shard core.
The display was never meant to force obedience. Public humiliation only made proud families dangerous.
The King had goaded them instead, inviting their swords toward a project the Crown wanted measured.
The unowned region waited beyond all of that politics, broken and empty after decades of failure.
Three settlements had failed within her lifetime, each one starting with walls and confident military ledgers.
