Present Time
The hallway to the throne room was grander than anything Yelena had ever seen or even imagined existed, lined with carved marble pillars and with the ceiling arching to impossible height overhead.
The ceiling panels within the arches had been painted by a master artist with images of castles in the clouds. She was certain that she spied more than one dragon twisting through the clouds, but she could not examine the artwork too closely, or she would have fallen – the floor underfoot was tiled, and it took care in her soft-soled shoes not to slip on their glossy surface.
The hallway was busy with courtiers, dressed in floating layers of silk and glinting with gemstones. She was relieved that the dress that she wore, one of the many Sylvin had brought back to her, was
