The palace, already big from afar, felt like a giant overlooking the world up close. Lucas's eyes moved up, then down, then to the other side, before following with his eyes as they took a turn to move parallel to it.
In the end, it was not the palace they were going to, it seemed. Their destination was beside it, making Lucas think of one most probable place where the ceremony for the celebration might take place.
"It looks empty, doesn't it, like a symbol instead of where the Empire is controlled from?"
Without turning his eyes away from the scenery, Lucas nodded:
"Indeed, it does."
With its doors closed, its grounds seemingly empty, and no one, not even guards, outside or around it, the imperial palace was indeed as the princess had described it.
"But that is where the Empire has always been controlled from. And no one, not even the many rebels there had been at the fringe of the Empire, had ever dared desecrate it, not with the Emperor and the elders inside."
