Inside the jade palace, the place set for the feast was outstanding. It was decorated with utmost care and finese.
Long tables radiated outward from the imperial dais like the spokes of a wheel, draped in cloth so white it seemed to glow, set with porcelain thin enough to read scripture through. Orchids floated in shallow jade bowls between the place settings. Somewhere behind a carved lattice screen, a string ensemble played something elegant enough to be ignored.
It was, by every measure, the kind of evening where empires were not won by the sword but by the angle of one's jaw and the cut of one's coat.
And every soul in that glittering hall knew exactly who they were waiting for.
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"He won't come," said Lady Ishanvi Morath to her daughter, adjusting the girl's hairpin for the ninth time. "A man like that doesn't attend marriage feasts. He attends battlefields."
"He was invited, Mother."
"So was a typhoon, once. It also did not respond."
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