The siege ended.
On the third morning after the defeat of the Wyverns, the great bells of the city didn't ring. The bakeries didn't open. The streets were eerily quiet, save for the rhythmic, synchronized tramping of iron boots.
Mirabelle stood in the foyer of the West Tower. She wasn't wearing armor today. She wasn't wearing the leather of the hunt or the velvet of the party.
She wore a gown of heavy, black brocade, embroidered with silver thread that looked like frost climbing a windowpane. It was stiff, regal, and funeral-dark.
Revas stood behind her, fastening her cloak. He wore a charcoal grey suit, sharply tailored, with his white hair tied back with a black ribbon. He looked less like a monster and more like a Consort, though one with a violent past.
"You are shaking again," Revas murmured, his hands lingering on her shoulders. "Is it the cold? Or the anticipation?"
"Neither," Mirabelle said, smoothing her gloves. "It's the silence. I expected... resistance."
