The throne room was drowning in darkness.
The pale light from the tall windows fell across the floor in long, thin strips, the moonlight making its way inside and then simply giving up, unable to reach the far end of the chamber or illuminate anything it touched with more than the suggestion of shape.
The ceiling stretched flat and vast above, supported by twelve massive pillars of blackened stone, six on each side, their surfaces carved with elaborate reliefs depicting figures of every kind, men and beasts and beings that belonged to races from across the known world, each one rendered with the precision of something that had been placed there to be remembered rather than merely decorated.
Before each pillar sat a throne, each one built for a specific occupant whose nature it communicated without explanation.
