Sylvia was still sitting upright on the sofa, her right hand frozen in mid-air as she sensed the light in the room had changed. She stared blankly toward the large window, where the bright morning light had now turned into a fading deep orange. The sun had already tilted westward, and the mist of Nocture's night began to rise slowly from the ground, wrapping the city like a faintly glowing black blanket.
Only then did she realize: night had fallen.
Time had passed without her noticing. The pile of documents she had been reading one by one now lay neatly on the obsidian table, her reply to Zark had been sent, and the room felt quieter than usual. The crystals in the walls began to glow brighter, replacing the lost sunlight, but the faint purple light only made the shadows in the corners feel deeper.
Sylvia let out a soft sigh, a long, heavy breath, not from physical fatigue, but because her mind felt overwhelmingly full.
