(POV: Orien – Vice Principal)
The sun hadn't fully risen, but the Port of Valmara was already choking with breathless awe.
Crowds stretched across the upper terraces and loading towers. Uniformed cadets stood in formation atop arcane metal platforms. Foreign ambassadors and high-ranking officials watched from the crystal-viewing balconies.
High above the central dockyards, a thousand murmurs twisted into a single breathless silence. Flags of every continent flapped in practiced order, lining the marble viewing platforms and skybridges, each glinting with their respective sigils.
Delegates, nobles, officers, and scholars filled the arena-like terraces that encircled the harbor — an audience of the world's most powerful, most feared, and most curious.
And beneath them, encased in shadow and fog, the drydock gates remained closed.
