The sun rose over Silvermoor like a blessing.
Gold and rose and amber, spilling across the rooftops, catching the windows of the palace, setting the fountain in the garden ablaze with light. The city stirred below—merchants opening their stalls with practiced efficiency, children running to school with laughter and shouts, guards changing shifts with quiet professionalism. Life, ordinary and extraordinary, continued in the kingdom that had been rebuilt from ashes, from war, from centuries of division.
Seren stood on the palace balcony.
