The chamber stank of scorched stone and old blood. Ether lanterns burned low in their sconces, shadows stretching like claws across the cracked floor tiles. Outside the high, narrow windows, Donin's capital was silent beneath its curfew, the sky painted in bruised violet and the distant haze of smoldering pyres.
Hadeon sat on the edge of the council dais, a throne only in name, carved from blackwood and silver inlay now darkened by soot from the fires he had ordered the night before. His black hair, streaked with silver, fell loose over one shoulder, catching the lantern light like a blade. His eyes, cold, metallic, and pitiless, never left the man kneeling before him.
Aslan was trembling. A man who once commanded Donin, now knelt in the wreckage of his own government, robes torn and smeared with ash. He had been proud when Hadeon first arrived with promises of stability, of new power. He had thought himself clever when he betrayed the previous council.
