End of Chapter 1
As the council disperses, the great hall empties into echo and ash. Servants gather goblets, candles burn low, and the last of the banners stir gently in the draft from the sea. For the first time all day, the air feels lighter, as though a storm has passed without breaking.
You step out onto the battlements, the evening sky torn open with streaks of gold and violet. The wind carries the salt of the Baltic, sharp but clean. Behind you, the lords still quarrel, the priests still whisper, yet above them the three flags of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway rise together against the clouds.
Hope stirs, fragile as a flame in the wind. The Kalmar Union has survived its first test—but only just. Ahead lies a path of hard choices, each one capable of binding the crowns tighter, or tearing them apart forever.