[Present]
The throne room was not a place of ceremony. Celestina had no subjects to impress, no nobles to intimidate, and no court to maintain.
She held no kingdom; she managed an apparatus, a complex, multi-tiered structure of operatives designed to keep her at its invisible center. The room existed for one purpose: thought.
It was a cathedral of silence, constructed from the same cold, unyielding stone that formed the Seam House itself. The throne was a slab of ancient granite positioned at the far end of the chamber.
Afternoon light bled through narrow, slit-like windows, cutting across the center of the room in sharp amber blades, but the throne itself remained swallowed in deliberate shadow. Celestina sat within that darkness, her posture perfect, the practiced stillness of a woman who had spent decades learning how to occupy space without disturbing it.
Her eyes drifted to the time crystal resting on the armrest's built-in shelf. It was dark.
