Chapter 254 - 255: You said my what now?
"Where the fuck is he?" Isabella hissed under her breath, lips pressed into a flat, annoyed line as her eyes scanned the crooked courtyard like a predator on the edge of pouncing.
The palace—if one could even call it that—was more of a glorified stone carcass than a marvel of architecture. Sunlight spilled across cracked stone slabs that lined the ground unevenly, some shifted, others chipped, as if the earth itself had grown tired of keeping things straight. The walls were a patchwork of pale stone, some still rough and grainy like they’d been yanked from the mountain just yesterday. In certain spots, moss crept between the gaps like nature was politely trying to reclaim what had been taken.
At a glance, it tried to look regal. There were wide pillars—slightly crooked. Arched doorways—none symmetrical. Animal hides hung lazily over some entrances, stiff with dried blood and smoke from past fires. A few bone chimes dangled in corners, clinking eerily in the breeze like forgotten warnings.
Primitive luxury, Isabella thought. Emphasis on primitive.
She narrowed her eyes, barely containing a scoff. These people couldn’t figure out how to make a decent spoon—still boiling water in inflated goat stomachs tied with vines. Their idea of seasoning was "add more ashes." And yet somehow, somehow, they had carved out an entire palace.
How was this even possible?
"It’s probably magic," she muttered, adjusting Glimora in her arms.
The tiny beast gave a sleepy grumble and nestled closer into Isabella’s chest like an old woman with zero social obligations. Her soft fur twitched whenever Isabella passed under beams of sun, and her tail flopped lazily over Isabella’s arm.
Isabella looked down at her, then back at the building in front of her with a look that said, I hate this timeline.
She muttered again under her breath, "This whole place is just rocks stacked on rocks pretending to have style."
"Maybe the city is even worse," Isabella continued to herself. "A bunch of smug idiots with stone mansions and no socks. Who knows?"
She spotted a group of guards lounging between two upright tusks driven into the ground, talking like they had nothing better to do. Laughing, shifting spears from one shoulder to the other. One of them even held a basket of dried meat like he was mid-lunch.