The Imperial audience hall was colder than I expected.
Not in temperature, but in atmosphere—like someone had drained the color from the room and replaced it with protocol and paranoia. The tiles gleamed with perfection, and the pillars were wrapped in coiling dragons.
Seriously, I think every room in this palace looked the same, from the Empress's palace to the throne room, everything looked like a dragon threw up on it. If I never saw a dragon or a phoenix, it would be much too soon.
I get that, given the materials that were available when this place was constructed, it wasn't easy to make each place unique… but a part of me was screaming that somewhere, somehow, I was going to paint all the wood a different color, just to break up the monotony of mahogany.
