The evening had descended not with drama, but with an almost ceremonial gentleness. A fine velvet dusk wrapped itself around the windows of the palace, muting the last remnants of twilight. The air was still, untroubled, as if the world itself had paused to listen to the hush inside the room. Here, in the heart of the old presidential residence now more mausoleum than home Elsbeth Avalenne sat alone in her study, her posture as composed as a marble effigy, her presence barely stirring the air.

The chamber was cloaked in a dim golden glow, flickering faintly from the hearth where a slow-burning fire whispered its gentle crackling. The scent of dry wood and aged parchment mingled in the air, forming an invisible atmosphere of old wisdom, solitude, and the lingering shadow of power now voluntarily left behind. The furniture was sparse, yet deliberate a dark oak table scarred by time and use, a heavy upholstered armchair whose worn leather cradled her form like an old confidant, and shelves that climbed the walls with volumes untouched for decades.

Elsbeth Avalenne sat there, poised and utterly still, her presence more like that of an icon than a woman. Her pale fingers, slender and precise, held a wine glass with a delicacy that suggested deep reverence not for the drink itself, but for the ritual of drinking. Her eyes were lowered, fixed on the yellowed pages of a book laid open before her. The firelight danced across her cheekbones and touched the ends of her dark hair, giving her silhouette a timeless, somber elegance. Outside, night had fully embraced the world, and the panes of glass reflected only the room’s interior a private world, sealed away from the rest of existence.

She lifted the glass to her lips slowly, not out of lethargy but out of a ritualistic care. The wine was not a means of intoxication for her it was a kind of anchor, a warm tether in a life often ruled by abstraction and thought. She sipped gently, the crimson liquid catching a glint of light as it passed her lips, and set the glass back down with deliberate quietness. The soft clink against the wooden table was almost ceremonial, punctuating her stillness with sound, as if it were the close of a stanza.