The Grand Ballroom of the Zenith Spire was a study in predatory opulence. Beneath vaulted ceilings of reinforced crystal, the air was a suffocating soup of overlapping influences. It was not just the noise, the orchestrated hum of a hundred different conversations and the clinking of crystal, it was the mana. Every guest was a font of power. Vane watched as a group of Counts from the borderlands huddled together, their auras flickering like guttering candles as they tried to remain invisible to the Great Lords circling the floor.
Valerica moved beside Vane as a silent, silver specter. Her gown was a masterwork of enchanted silk, a shimmering lunar-silver that seemed to catch the light and sharpen it into a blade. She did not walk. She drifted with her chin tilted at the precise angle of a woman used to looking down on the world.
