Athea entered the throne room through the eastern door, the way she always entered it when the audience was private.
The wide doors of the formal approach were sealed. Two Royal Sentinels stood inside the antechamber as she passed, mirrored helms catching the high light from the stained glass above, and neither of them turned a fraction in her direction.
At the far end of the chamber, on a dais raised three shallow steps above the floor, Queen Athena Lumina sat in the weirwood throne.
There was a low chair placed eight paces from the foot of the dais.
Athea took it.
"Mother."
Athena lifted the Omni-pad resting against her thigh, glanced at it once, and set it on the small table beside the throne.
"Marshal Veyric sent a report at first light. The Ninth lost two squads in the recovery off the southern shelf. One of them was Captain Lyssa Erevan's."
