The hour had long crept past midnight, and the air within the chamber was thick, cloying with the scent of smoldering myrrh. The only light came from the clusters of tall beeswax candles, their golden flames flickering in constant agitation, as if they, too, feared the secrets the night might uncover. Shadows danced along the walls like capering phantoms, stretching and twisting into grotesque forms that seemed to mock their creator.

Aemon Galanyonth glided across the polished marble floor in bare feet, the coolness of the stone offering little relief from the feverish tumult boiling beneath his flawless exterior. His crimson silk robe edged in gold thread and clasped at the waist by a belt adorned with rubies, whispered against his ankles. The fabric caught the dim light like rivulets of blood frozen in motion. His platinum-blonde hair, still woven with thin strands of gold and specks of crushed rubies, cascaded over his shoulders like molten moonlight. He had not loosened it for sleep. Sleep eluded him.

His violet eyes, pale as the last breath of dusk, flared with an unsettling luminescence as he surveyed the room. Mirrors—hundreds of them—lined the walls, tall and narrow like sentinels, their beveled edges glittering in the flicker of the dying flames. Gilded frames twisted into serpentine forms and snarling phoenixes held their glass aloft, reflecting Aemon’s image back at him from every conceivable angle. Each mirror multiplied his perfection, a labyrinth of identical beauty.

And yet, he could not escape the feeling that, somewhere within the endless reflections, a flaw waited to be uncovered.

He stopped before one of the grandest mirrors, its silvered surface unmarred by a single blemish. His gaze devoured his reflection with an intensity bordering on worship. The man who stared back was a vision of curated divinity—flawless alabaster skin stretched over high, aristocratic cheekbones, the small beauty mark beneath his right eye like a drop of ink upon a porcelain scroll. Perfection achieved.