The mountaintop altar stood like a monument to winter's eternal reign, a platform of black ice so ancient its origins predated written history, carved with symbols in languages no living scholar could fully translate, positioned at precisely the point where three mountain peaks converged to create a natural amphitheater.
The setting sun painted the surrounding snowfields in shades of rose gold and deepening purple, light bleeding across the horizon as though the sky itself was wounded and beautiful in its dying.
Everyone who'd made the journey assembled in careful positions around the altar, nobles in their finest furs, priests in ceremonial robes that had been white that morning but now bore traces of incense smoke and ritual offerings, Imperial Hunters standing at attention despite hours of maintaining watchful readiness, servants and attendants clustering at the edges where protocol permitted them to witness without intruding.
