Night fell hard over the realm, not like a curtain drawn, but like a blow struck.
The great hall, once radiant with song and life, now stood wrapped in velvet-black dread. Chandeliers strained to hold back the dark, casting trembling pools of gold that flickered with desperation. Flames crackled in the hearths, high and hungry—but they gave no warmth. The cold had sunk too deep, threading through marrow and memory, finding the spaces where grief had already hollowed the soul.
It was not winter that had come. It was something older.
A silence sharper than any blade pressed itself against the skin of every being gathered. No one shouted. No one wept. Even the children—the youngest among them—had gone quiet, eyes wide, too knowing for their years. Instinct had done what words could not. It
