Hours of discussion later, the candles burned down to stubs and the wine long since switched from goblets to whatever's closest, the chief lounges half-drunk in his chair, boots propped up on the table, pointing a gnawed bone at Lucien with the loose, deliberate focus of a man determined to prove he's still following along.
"So that's the whole of it," he slurs, squinting at the parchment tacked to the wall. A sprawl of scribbled maps, routes, and figures Lucien's been sketching and re-sketching for the better part of an hour.
"That's really it," Lucien confirms, tapping the map at the marked stretch of road, then dragging his finger along the line toward the village. "Shadowfang provides protection and upkeep along this stretch of the trade route. In exchange, you take a fat commission and get access to goods that would otherwise never reach this far into the tribelands."
Braska squints harder. "What's the catch."
