The Queen did not call for the march immediately.
The Court of Chains never moved without its own reckoning, and in the shadow of the breach, that reckoning had a name — the Trial of the Hollow. The Trial was a tradition older than the Queen herself, older even than the black stone from which the Court had been carved. Some claimed it was as old as the chains themselves, forged in the first wars that bound the realm's shadows to its sovereigns. Every captain who had ever served under the Queen's banner had faced it. Some returned from its depths bearing the weight of victory in their stance, their eyes made darker by what they had seen, their loyalty bound tighter to the chain they swore upon. Others never returned at all.
