The silence in Elric's study didn't just sit and was suffocated. It was a heavy, suffocating thing, thick with the scent of bitter iron-gall ink and the faint, lingering smell of cedarwood smoke from the hearth that had long since died down to grey ash.
Elric was hunched over his desk, his broad shoulders casting a jagged shadow against the map of the Capital. He'd sent the reply to his parents the day before.
"Count Valerius is a non-entity," Rion remarked, his voice cutting through the gloom like a chilled blade. He was standing by the tall, narrow window. He didn't look at Elric, his eyes were fixed on a long, narrow scroll, a ledger of names that read more like a death row list than a guest registry for a Royal Party. "He'll bark if the Vernhardts tell him to, but he has no teeth. However, the Marquis of Painley is a different story. He's been sniffing around the iron trade routes. He can be bought, or at the very least, leaned upon."
