The hall held its breath.
Richardus's mouth had opened to continue his argument, the next phrase of it already forming, and it stayed open without producing sound, the minister visibly recalibrating in real time as he registered what was being offered and understood, faster than most in the room, exactly what it meant.
Haryntha raised both hands before her, palms outward, and the air between her hands and the open space of the hall folded inward on itself and then unfolded again into something new.
A screen of light appeared.
It wasn't quite light and it wasn't quite solid, a transparent layer that hung in the air above the hall's central floor, large enough that every person present - from the Emperor on his dais to the lowest-ranked attendant near the doors - could see it clearly without needing to move. It shimmered faintly at its edges, the way heated air shimmers above stone, but at its center the image was perfectly clear.
The Blackmoss Spire.
