Did the chamber shrink?
It felt that way.
The room seemed to convulse around the two men, the glow of torchlight bending against the tension in the air.
The cloaked warrior's hammer beat with golden light, each flare peojecting shadows that made the marble floor look like cracked bone.
Lan stood across from him, dust falling from his dark hair, his pale eyes fixed not on the hammer but on the man wielding it. His lips curled into something caught between amusement and disdain.
The duke swallowed, his jeweled fingers trembling as he clutched the table. For all his bluster, for all his investment, the air pressing from Lan's presence made his triumph feel like glass—fragile, already cracking.
"Come then," Lan said softly, his voice a thread of fabric pulled across steel. "Let's see what a year's revenue buys."
