Cecilia found herself in the Imperial throne room in Avalon, and it was dying.
Dust lay thick on the black stone floor. Thin, watery light came through windows so filthy she could barely see the sky. The great tapestries of the Empire's history, every one of which she could name and date, hung frayed and faded, some torn clean through to the bare wall behind. The twin thrones at the head of the hall, which she had seen polished every morning of her life, were dull and chipped and strung with cobwebs. The air smelled of mildew and old smoke and something worse that had no smell at all: the feeling of a house that had been given up on.
Arthur stood in front of the empty thrones with his back to her.
Not in his coat, not in court dress. Plain dark clothes. His shoulders were not set the way they were before a fight. They were set the way they were after one, when he had lost.
He didn't turn. He just spoke, quietly, and the quiet carried down the whole length of the hall.
