Next was Mireilla. She didn't rise, but her voice held the steadiness of someone who knew the worth of posture even when seated.
"Mireilla Dane," she said simply. "From the Deep Green."
That drew a subtle shift across the nobles' expressions.
The Deep Green.
A region that curled along the northwest spine of the Arcanis Empire, thick with ancient forests and whispered with old magic. It was a place nobles referenced in poems and war records alike—a land of druids and dusk-marked rivers, of ruined temples and isolated clans that bowed to the Empire but kept their roots deep in the soil. The people of the Deep Green were known not for politics, but for presence. Elusive, enduring, and close to the wild threads of mana older than the cities that claimed to govern them.
Mireilla met their looks with a stillness that didn't ask for recognition. It expected it.
Then Caeden spoke, voice like cooled steel. Controlled. Grounded.
"Caeden Roark. From Redwater. Dustlands."
