The air changed the moment they descended past the final step of the hidden staircase. What had been the warm, familiar atmosphere of the Moonlight Palace transmuted into something alien—thin and biting, carrying a chill that seeped through armor and settled into bone.
Commander Lyra stood at the vanguard, her silver eyes scanning the vast expanse that stretched before them. Gone was the confined space of the stairwell, replaced by an impossibly wide courtyard blanketed in snow. Broken architecture loomed against a colorless sky—skeletal frameworks of what might once have been majestic structures, now reduced to haunting silhouettes.
"Stay on guard," Lyra commanded, her voice carrying to the warriors behind her. Her water blades remained sheathed at her hips, but her hand never strayed far from their hilts. The lightweight armor she wore—silver plates over midnight blue leather—allowed for the fluid movement her water-wielding techniques required. "This place... it feels wrong."
