Strax remained looking east for a few seconds, as if he could see through the snow, the walls of Asgard, the distant forests, and all the lands that separated his city from Aelyra's former domain.
The horizon was quiet.
Too quiet.
Aelyra had been removed, the Heavenly Emperor was trying to pretend he controlled the situation, the lesser nobles of the East were probably locked in their halls counting soldiers, gold, and survival options, and the ports would begin looking for new protectors before the ink on the imperial sentence even dried. For any other ruler, that would be a distant crisis. For Strax, it was an open door.
