The fire crawled like a wild beast just loosed from its cage, licking at the once-polished wooden walls. The pretty blue paint cracked and split, coughing up black shards that spun into the smoke. From afar, the mansion seemed to lose its shape piece by piece, its pillars warping into trembling shadows against the rising blaze, a cruel contrast to the slow-falling snow in the pitch-black night.
At the front gate, imperial soldiers stood in rigid silence. Torchlight bounced off their armor, every twitch of movement sharp and visible. A few sat astride horses, reins gripped in one hand, spears held steady in the other. No shouting. No panic. Everything too neat, too rehearsed, for what anyone would call an assault.
