The trial opened three days later, and the whole kingdom stood ready at its threshold.
The entry point was a shimmering gate in the sky above the pocket realm, a tear of pale light that pulsed once every ten days and stayed open only long enough to swallow those who had come to enter. It hung there over the assembled host like a held breath, and the light spilling out of it fell across a hundred thousand upturned faces. Ananta Regalon had come to enter in force, and the sight of them gathered in one place, for the first time in a long time, was a thing to behold.
