The Imperial Tower did not so much announce itself as simply refuse to be ignored.
Ren had seen it before, of course — a distant silhouette glimpsed from his villa's balcony that first night, dwarfed by comparison to the ancient scarred bulk of the Origin Spire looming somewhere behind it. But distance, he was learning, had a way of lying about scale in this world. Standing now at its base, craning his neck back until the muscles in his throat protested, Ren understood that whatever mental image he'd built from that first glimpse had been laughably, embarrassingly small.
