Dusk fell over the northern mountains like a shroud of purple velvet.
The North Iron Gate of the Sacred Ridge was an imposing relic of the First Era. Two massive pillars of black basalt rose sixty feet into the mist, supporting an iron portcullis covered in ancient warding runes that hummed with a cold, oppressive vibration. Beyond the iron bars lay a wall of impenetrable white fog and towering, ancient spruce trees whose needles were as dark as midnight.
A hundred spectators stood gathered along the perimeter clearing.
On the western terrace, High Elder Corvin stood beside Inquisitor Malakor, a tall, gaunt man clad in dark gray magistrate robes carrying the imperial seal of the Capital Conclave. Around them stood forty council guards holding torches that sputtered in the rising mountai
