The day of the announcement banquet arrived. The sky above the Dawnoro capital residence was a vast, unsullied blue. You know, the kind of sky that promised frost by nightfall but offered, for now, the perfect, golden light of a sun too polite to mention the coming winter.
The residence itself had been transformed.
Since the wolves of the northern territories had never quite trusted the softness of marble and gilded cornices, it had always been decorated and built like a fortress. But today, those walls were hung with banners.
Deep red and silver, the colors of the Dawnoro house, rippled in the cold breeze alongside more neutral tapestries woven with scenes of unity and peace. Torches lined the approach, their flames bright even against the sun.
The gates stood open.
And through them, from the earliest hours of the morning, the guests began to arrive.
