Esrad.
Crown of the Empire. Navel of the world.
A city not built—but declared. Cast from marble and mana by the will of the Immortal Founders, etched into existence by decree, not by hand.
Here, every stone bore the weight of centuries.
Every breath was sanctioned by power.
Every shadow belonged to someone important.
Its walls rose high, veined with gold and singing with enchantments so ancient that no living mage dared to claim mastery.
Wards hummed like sleeping gods in the mortar.
Scripts of binding and remembrance coiled around archways like ivy, each inscribed by long-dead emperors whose names were now spoken only in ritual.
Roads of blackglass wound like obsidian veins toward the city's heart—toward the Senate Citadel.
Each brick was carved with scripture, and those who walked upon them walked over the very bones of history.
And at the center of it all, where the roads converged like fate-lines, stood the Citadel itself: a towering monolith of silence and stone.
