Heavenly Phoenix Range...
The night hung heavily over the floating palace like a silken drape woven with starlight. Lamps of spirit fire glowed along the jade corridors of the Pleasure Palace, their faint azure flames swaying with the midnight breeze.
Outside, the roar of distant waterfalls merged with the occasional bursts of firecrackers from the gambling houses that never slept. Yet within the inner court, silence reigned—an uneasy, suffocating silence, broken only by the footsteps of a solitary figure.
Lady Rina Lova.
Her steps were cautious, each one echoing across the marble tiles like a guilty confession. Clad in beast-hide garments with golden seams, she carried the aura of a huntress, but her eyes betrayed turbulence. Tonight, she had not come as a warrior or competitor—she had come as a woman weighed down by choice.
