The morning sun cut clean and cold across the Eternal City, its rays slashing down the marble columns and gilded rooftops with the precision of a legionary's blade.
Inside the Imperial Palace, the Court of War had already been summoned into one of the many meeting rooms though this one looked something more similar to the senate building with two rows of raised seating on either side, with a single raised throne on the far end of the room, while the floor was a decorative map of the entire continent, though today a massive area rug had been lain down to cover this map, and instead focus on a closer territorial map covering the Western part of the continent exclusively.
Julius strode through the long vaulted halls in simple dress armor—no ceremonial robe, no crown, just the iron-forged leather and gilded plates of a soldier who just so happened to rule an empire.
At his side walked Serena, similarly clad in the attire of readiness rather than ceremony.
