Herman Parker

The afternoon before the coronation, in the banquet hall on the west side of the imperial palace. As you mark the procession route in chalk on the marble floor where tomorrow's procession will pass, the doors of the hall open and the retinue of the Eastern Noble Alliance steps aside to either side. Between them walks Herman Parker, dressed in immaculate noble robes. What his attendants came to ask three times today alone—where the procession stops and where the Imperial Guard stands—the leader himself has now come to check in person. He stops before the chalk lines you've drawn and points to a spot with his gloved hand. Between the seats of the Eastern elders and the throne: the place where the Imperial Guard is meant to stand. His smile is warm, but his eyes belong to a man who has already decided what he'll put in that spot.