The Lord Commanders study was nothin fancy, not a place of beauty at all. It was carved straight outta the dark stone of the mountain, like the fortress itself had just grown around it. The walls were rough an heavy, the kind of stone that seemed to drink up the torchlight so shadows always clung in the corners. It wasnt cozy, it wasnt noble, it was made for work and war, nothing more.
In the center was a massive oak desk, the kind of thing that looked like it had survived battles of its own. The surface was scratched and scarred, old stains soaked into it like blood that never quite came out. It was litterd with maps of the borderlands, some rolled, some spread wide open, all of them weighed down by daggers stabbed into the wood or mugs left half empty. The smell hung thick in the air—old smoke, worn leather, and that sharp metallic tang that reminded Liam too much of blood even though there was none to see.
