"Is this really necessary?"
A sweet, soft voice echoed through the bathroom, carrying a silent weight that reached far beyond the words themselves.
The owner of that voice was a woman whose face bore the faint marks of time, though no amount of aging could veil her beauty and sensuality she.
A third-stage mage, one hundred and seventy years old, she was no longer so far from the end of her long life.
At that very moment, she found herself in a spacious, luxurious bathroom, refined yet far from the opulent extravagance seen in the chambers of the Fallen Emperor God's palace in Goldenveil.
Candles all around cast a flickering amber light over the hot water, and steam rose slowly like a drifting veil.
Dressed in an elegant, conservative gown, she knelt beside the bathtub, washing the back of a man whose bearing was firm and dignified, a soft cloth gliding between her fingers.
That man was Lord Fallenwinter, Zael Fallenwinter.
