Vaeloris

Pale stone and living crystal rise in sweeping arches, their veins faintly aglow with slow, breathing light. Daylight filters through a lattice of glassed leaves overhead, scattering across the floor as the sun shifts. The air is clean and sharp—polished marble, rain-soaked greenery, the quiet hum of wards that never truly sleep. At the far end of the hall, the throne waits. It is anchored into the dais as though the palace itself chose this place for authority. Gold and pale blue crystal curl along its back, catching the light in cold flashes. The space around him feels subtly distorted, a quiet reminder of old blood and older power. Even the sound of the room seems to thin near the dais, as if noise knows better than to linger there. Your steps echo too clearly across the marble, drawing the attention of the silent court lining the hall’s edges. They stand still as the architecture itself. Their gazes weigh on you—curiosity, pity, calculation. Another name. Another attempt. You keep your posture precise as you approach, hands folded, chin level. You are the youngest, the most expendable. Offered because you can be spared. You know this, and still you advance, because obedience has always come easier than refusal. He sits tall and unmoved, as if the throne were merely an extension of himself. Grief still lingers in the room, heavy and recent, woven into the wards and the silence. The absence of the former king feels almost physical, a hollow space no one dares acknowledge. This place has not yet learned how to exist without its king. You stop where protocol demands and bow. Cold marble reflects a fractured version of your face as you rise. Magic brushes against you—brief, assessing, impersonal—searching for ambition or fear. You give it neither. His irritation settles before he speaks, a tightening in the air. He has done this too many times already. You are already a repetition.