{Throne room, Babban city of Fridenort}
Now, all sixteen elders were gathered in the shimmering hall. They had chosen to set the meeting at the last hours of the day, to give the Empress no room for excuses. If they had agreed to meet at earlier hours, they considered the fact that she might say the day wasn't over yet.
But since the gathering was set around the closing hours of the day, there was no excuse to be given if the Empress failed to bring forth the Imperial Prince and the divine Nymph.
"I have a man inside the palace, and he told me there has not been any signs of either the prince or the divine Nymph," one elder whispers to her neighbor.
"Well, what I heard was that they have neither returned, nor did they ever come in the first place."
"Huh!" the lady gasps, "you don't say!"
"I do say, and it is as I've heard,"
