The hour of mourning was drawing near, and from where the crowd had gathered before the Memorial, people could already see figures slowly stepping onto the raised platform above.
Great figures.
The Heads of the Great Houses had come. Princes and Princesses of those same Houses stood among them, and even the Guardian of the Tree himself was present. It was a catching sight, one few had expected to witness with their own eyes. So many of the most powerful and revered figures in Sancta Vedelia gathered in one place gave the ceremony an even greater sense of gravity, making this place of mourning feel all the more solemn and significant.
That, after all, had been the point.
It was exactly why every important noble of the Kingdoms and of Central Vedelia had been explicitly required to attend: to display unity before the people, to remind the common folk and the highborn alike that after the Blood Wedding, all of Sancta Vedelia had something, or someone to mourn.
