THE Living Emotive walked through the last bastion of the Gilded Ones, and rows of Luxuria walked with her in perfect silence.
Around them, the vast city-state churned with panic. Superbius in their golden finery hurried between the towers, Ira barking orders that no longer meant anything, whole Houses of Gilded Ones spilling into the streets as word of the fallen Citadels reached even this deepest and proudest seat.
The place was called Nova Athens, and from the memories of the many she had already subjugated, Emotive knew the name did not belong to this city-state alone. It stemmed from a whole cluster of Observable Existences the Gilded Ones controlled, a grand holding they called Nova Athens, and this golden heart had taken the name of that place. Its towers stretched so far in every direction that their edges vanished into haze, and the air here smelled of incense and the particular sweetness that great wealth used to hide what fed it.
