The Imperial Chamber, located in the heart of the Lionhart Estate, had been designed with a single purpose: to impress upon visitors the unassailable power of the Rikxia Empire and its ruling family. Massive columns of ice-veined marble rose to a vaulted ceiling adorned with frescoes depicting the Founding Emperor's triumph over the ancient darkness. Light poured through tall windows of multi-hued glass, creating pools of color across the polished floor.
At the chamber's center stood seven thrones, arranged in a perfect circle. Each had been crafted to reflect the nature of its occupant: one of blue-white ice, another of living wood that flowered with the seasons, a third formed from coral and pearl, the fourth of volcanic glass shot through with veins of magma, the fifth of windswept stone, the sixth of shimmering metal that caught every ray of light, and the seventh—largest and most imposing—of bones and teeth from creatures long extinct, polished to a terrible gleam.
