The glass panes of the high-arched windows let in the midday sun, but Priscilla Lysandra's chambers remained cold.
Her headquarters—if they could be called that—sat at the western fringe of the imperial palace grounds. Not hidden, no. Merely… ignored. Nestled between the old observatory archives and a wing that hadn't seen renovation in decades. The floor tiles here didn't shimmer. The walls bore no enchantments to keep the temperature perfect. The lamps had to be lit manually, and the tapestries? Faded, outdated, and untouched by a court artisan's hand in years.
A subtle message.
You are allowed to exist. But not to shine.
And she had learned to live with that.
She sat now at her desk—one of the few things she'd chosen herself—going over reports left by her attendant, Idena. Rotations of imperial personnel at the festival, status updates from the Shadowguard outposts near Velis Prominence, and several sealed letters bearing the crimson wax sigil of her half-brother.
