The fifth course had just been served — quail stuffed with pistachios and rosewater, resting on a bed of saffron-infused couscous — when the horns sounded.
These were the deep, bronze-throated war horns of the Imperial Vanguard — the kind that shook wine in glasses and dust from rafters, and they announced only one man in the entire world.
The Jade Palace doors — forty feet of carved jade and iron, each panel depicting a different conquest of the Vroulan dynasty — swung open with a groan that vibrated through the floor.
They moved with the slowness of a turtle, grabbing the attention of everyone in the hall, momentarily stopping them from whatever they engaged in.
The eunuchs entered first.
