Everywhere was warm , oppressively so , as if the walls themselves sweated gold from the paint.
Crimson banners hung from every archway, mosaics glittered under candlelight, and every step one took sank into silken rugs so soft they could make a man forget the roughness of the dirt. It was beauty smothered under its own perfume, a palace that dazzled the eyes to dull the mind.
It felt, Alpheo thought during this long stay, like being locked in a single splendid room while knowing that on the rest of the house lay nothing but filth and ruin.
It was nothing more than a state with marble skin and a carcass for a heart. A golden cage built to hide the stench of a dying empire , and yet didn't that make him the fool even more for betting on it to live?
The mission to retrieve the Black Axes had already long begun.
