The streets of Fansilia were packed with citizens, and every projected screen in the city was showing the same thing: the Imperial Palace of Terria. Once a monument of splendor and triumph, it now stood cloaked in mourning. Its countless spires and domes, which usually blazed with gold and silver light, had been dimmed by decree. Black banners hung from its marble parapets and trailed in the wind like long shadows cast by grief.
Inside, the corridors that usually gleamed white were steeped in a muted amber glow. The air was heavy with incense — a slow-burning blend of myrrh and ash root whose scent drifted through the vaulted halls. Servants moved in silence, their footsteps muffled by dark carpets laid over the marble, and even the palace's great time bells had been stilled, replaced by the low drone of ceremonial hymns from the organ in the Hall of Mourning.
The Grand Hall of Celestine, where the funeral would be held, had become a cathedral of sorrow. On any other day its crystal chandeliers scattered fractured light across white-gold columns and mosaic floors that depicted the Empire's victories, but today those chandeliers burned dim beneath black veils. The mosaics seemed to lose their color in the subdued light, as though the Empire itself had withdrawn into silence. Vast banners hung from ceiling to floor along the walls, each bearing the sigil of a noble house in colorless thread for the mourning period. Rows of guards in black ceremonial armor flanked the hall with their faces hidden behind reflective helms and their halberds lowered in reverence.
At the center of the hall, beneath a vaulted dome painted with constellations, stood the Imperial catafalque, a raised dais of obsidian and silver bearing the coffin of Marquis Norda Miller. There was no body to bury, since he had died in the explosion that consumed his ship, but the coffin stood there all the same as a symbol of honor — a masterpiece of Terrian craftsmanship forged from translucent crystal steel and etched with the lines of the Empire's crest, the faint outline of the fallen commander's ceremonial armor visible beneath its misted glass. Hundreds of white lilies and black roses had been laid around it in perfect symmetry, sweet and funereal at once.
Every noble in Terria was there. Leonora, Roland and Aurelion sat among them, representing House Kaelthorn. Even on a day of mourning, the gossip did not stop. "All this fuss over Miller," someone murmured behind them. "He was nothing but a hot-blooded brute who chased glory to feed his own ego." And to an extent, they were right. But Norda Miller had done one thing that most of the nobles in that hall would never have dared to do: he had never once run from a fight, or turned his back on an enemy.
The tension in the room grew and grew until the great doors opened.
Emperor Johan Adrin, sovereign of the Terrian Empire, walked into the Grand Hall beneath its towering banners, and his presence alone was enough to quiet the entire chamber. He was a man both admired and feared. He was taller than most of his guards, with a frame built not by courtly luxury but by discipline and by a youth spent on campaign long before the crown was his. His hair, once raven black, carried faint streaks of iron gray at the temples — the only concession he had ever made to time. His steady brown eyes bore the weight of decades spent balancing ambition against survival. There was wisdom in them, but also a lingering exhaustion, the mark of a ruler who had seen too much and trusted too few. A cloak of deep crimson velvet lined with gold hung from his shoulders over a tunic woven from fibers mined on the moons of Arctel, strong as steel and soft as silk, with the crest of the Empire embroidered across the chest. On his brow sat the Imperial Crown of Terria — a simple circlet of aurite and onyx from the first age of the Empire, set with a deep amber stone that was said to hold the light of the first dawn and glowed faintly whenever the sun touched it.
With the Emperor's arrival, the funeral could begin, and as the nobles took their places, several important figures sat near the Kaelthorns, one of the most powerful houses in the Empire. Duchess Wistoria Lang, head of House Lang, was a proud woman who stood tall even among men who looked down on her for being a woman, still in her mid-thirties, with wavy blond hair and blue eyes that made her look both elegant and unshakably resolute. Seated beside her, by no coincidence, was her soon-to-be fiancé, Marquis Mikhail Rozasar, the renowned young general who had never been defeated in battle, also in his mid-thirties, with neatly swept-back red hair and green eyes that had never known what it was to lose. And if any man in the Empire commanded more respect than everyone else after the Emperor, it was Duke Antonio Bach, head of House Bach and father of the Empress, Christina Bach Adrin, which made him one of the most influential men alive. He was in his late sixties but showed no sign of giving in to age, with long gray hair and a belly he carried by choice rather than neglect, and green eyes that still looked as though he wanted more from life and fully intended to get it. These days he spent most of his time with his grandson, the Emperor's heir.
Once the Emperor was seated, the ceremony began. Speaker after speaker recounted the great deeds of Norda Miller; some told war stories about him, and others simply stood in silence and listened. At last it was time for the Emperor himself to take the stage. He rose and walked to the center of the hall. He let out a single slow breath, knowing that across the entire Empire, in every system it had ever conquered, its citizens were watching. Then he spoke, softly and calmly.
"I was saddened by the news of Marquis Norda Miller's death. As the Emperor of this mighty Empire, I lost a great commander that day. But as a man, I lost a friend. In my early years I spent a great deal of time with him, and we grew close. He always put the Empire above everything else. He was a true patriot to the very end, and that makes me proud." He paused. "I know I will not see you again, my friend, but I am certain the gates of heaven have welcomed you in all their glory. And I make you this promise: no matter what it takes, I will avenge you. May we meet again, in the only place that matters."
The Emperor's words touched hearts across the Empire. And with that, the funeral of the great hero, General Norda Miller, came to an end.