The suffocating silence inside the Grand Throne Room lingered like the dense, ionized pressure that precedes a catastrophic lightning strike.
Hundreds of high-ranking nobles, court mages, and military officers stood frozen along the emerald marble colonnades, their eyes darting between the disgraced figure of Lord Voss and the young summoner standing at the foot of the dais.
Two imperial guards hastily dragged the groaning, breathless Lord Voss toward the side antechamber, the plates of his armor scraping against the polished stone in a humiliating retreat.
High above the hall, the crystal chandeliers suspended from soaring vaulted arches hummed with warm light, casting radiant beams across the emerald flagstones.
Senior archmages of the Royal Arcane Academy clustered behind their bronze balustrades, their scrying orbs flickering with erratic azure static as they attempted to calculate the residual spiritual density left behind by Juna's display.
