The eastern continent tore through the cloud line on the morning of the tenth day. It was absolutely nothing like the gilded, floating spires Zenith had conditioned Vane to expect.
The Sunrise Embassy back on the island was polished black basalt and blood-red cedar. It was a carefully curated diplomatic mask built to project sophisticated, ancient power. This brutal place wore no mask.
The Razar seat resolved as the leviathan plummeted through the freezing mist. It began with a jagged, towering mountain range. Standard maps labeled these specific peaks impassable. The fortress itself was not simply built on the rock. It was carved directly into the mountain's throat, looking as though the black stone had organically grown around the iron walls over centuries of tectonic violence. The accumulated mana was so terrifyingly dense it visibly warped the freezing air above the compound. It was three hundred years of violent, concentrated cultivation permanently staining the atmosphere.
