The silence in the grand chamber was not merely an absence of sound; it was a suffocating, physical weight that seemed to press the copper-scented air directly against the marble floor.
Around the elevated semicircle of desks, the remnants of centuries of aristocratic supremacy lay in ruined, twitching heaps.
Nine of the eleven Council members were already dead, their bodies locked in the grotesque, contorted shapes of internal hemorrhage.
Their blood continued to drip in steady, rhythmic cadences from the polished stone edges, creating expanding crimson pools that reflected the pale light of the high stained-glass windows.
Lining the entire perimeter of the chamber, standing at three-pace intervals like statues carved from alabaster, were fifty guards encased in immaculate white articulated armor.
To an outsider, their gear appeared identical to the elite royal detachment granted by ancient sovereign prerogative.
