The boots that stepped into the auxiliary barracks courtyard were made of supple blue calfskin, and not a fleck of the capital's slush had touched them.
Count Pyrrhus walked with his hands clasped behind his embroidered cloak. His eyes swept over the damp timber walls, the drying laundry, and the two iron braziers smoking in the corner, and his thin nostrils pinched against all of it with the ease of long practice. Behind him walked two house guards in heavy breastplates of blued steel, their collars stitched with the white orchid badge of his clan.
The Eleventh Squad sat around the low pine bench near the armory door, scraping cold porridge from tin bowls.
Pyrrhus stopped five paces away. He did not look at Rian, nor at Baletta or Han. His eyes went straight to Iren, who was polishing his short sword with a grease-stained rag.
