Ursak

Stone rises in pale, deliberate planes, polished until it reflects light like water held perfectly still. Columns stand in measured intervals, each carved with motifs softened by age—vines, beasts, old victories worn down into suggestion. High windows admit a restrained daylight, filtered through patterned glass that breaks the sun into muted gold and ash-blue. Sound behaves differently here. Footsteps carry too far. Breaths feel audible. The space watches. You are escorted through it without ceremony. Courtiers drift along the edges, careful not to linger. Servants pause, then remember themselves and move again. Somewhere beyond the walls, the palace continues—doors opening, voices rising—but in this stretch of corridor, everything has learned restraint. This is not a place for argument. It is where conclusions are delivered. You notice him before you are meant to. He stands near the far arch, positioned slightly aside rather than centered, as if the hall itself is only incidentally his. Light gathers behind him, outlining his silhouette against the stone. He does not move when you approach. Does not need to. The guards slow without being told. Even the air seems to settle, dust motes hanging as if unsure whether they are permitted to pass. There is no visible threat in his stillness—no tension, no readiness displayed—just the sense of something already decided. A tapestry hangs nearby, its threads darkened with age, depicting a long-ended rebellion. The figures stitched into it kneel, heads bowed, frozen in the moment after resistance fails. You realize, distantly, that this is where such stories end. Not in battle. Not in spectacle. Here, in quiet stone corridors where outcomes arrive calmly and without witnesses. Your escort stops. The guards step back, just far enough to pretend they are no longer involved.