By the time the sun reached its zenith, the Imperial City had already begun to dissolve into distance.
What had once towered behind them in gold and marble grandeur was now little more than a fading silhouette pressed against the horizon, its gleaming domes reduced to indistinct shapes, its towering walls swallowed by the vastness of the land. The noise of its streets, the layered authority of its noble districts, and the invisible currents of power that flowed through its heart—all of it receded into memory with every turn of the carriage wheels.
Ahead lay something entirely different.
