The rest of the day was a blur of structured, hollow diplomacy. Vahn went through the motions, speaking with ministers and governors, engaging in the polite, unyielding exchanges that defined imperial life. The Elyndor representatives treated him with a cold, clinical respect. They acknowledged him as a sovereign of territory, but they did not see him as a peer. To them, he was a child playing with the tools of a god.
This distinction followed him into the evening as the Diplomatic Ball began.
The ball was held in a hall that seemed to be carved from a single, massive diamond. The light of a thousand distant suns was refracted through the walls, creating a shimmering, ethereal glow. The music was a series of spatial harmonics that resonated directly in the soul.
Vahn entered the hall alone. Celestine had remained on the ship; she was a princess of a fallen line, and in the hierarchy of Elyndor, that made her a ghost.
