Thick and thin files lay quietly on the table in the royal study. During these few short days, they had been flipped through countless times by that pair of steady hands. Then, as if they had been forgotten, they were placed down with unusual quietness. There hadn't been enough time for dust to cover the files, but the cool autumn breeze made their edges curl as if they had been burned by a fire.
Deep eyes slowly moved their gaze from the files toward the haziness outside, directly at the warm morning light in front of the palace. The light from the east had reached the highest brick on the Jingdou city walls but had not entered the Royal Palace, locked in darkness behind palace walls.