The air in Lord Corvan's borrowed chamber hung heavy with the cloying scent of perfume that the lord was kind enough to spray everywhere .
At the head of the table, Alpheo sat motionless, his fingers steepled before him. His gaze drifted across the room—past the goblets of deep red wine, past the half-eaten platters of roasted meats, past the maps weighed down by daggers at their corners—and settled on the empty space where Torghan should have been.
The Voghondai chieftain, though sworn to the war effort with nearly six hundred hardened warriors at his back, had not been summoned to this council. The reasons were twofold: first, Torghan's grasp of the southern tongue was rudimentary at best, making strategic discussion nearly impossible. But more importantly, his presence would have been a spark in a room full of dry tinder.
