Training the Subordinate
After a few minutes, Eon and Brinda returned alongside twenty others.
Their footsteps rolled through the corridor before they appeared, heavy boots striking old stone in uneven rhythm. The air in the room changed before the door even opened—rougher, denser, touched by the scent of sweat, iron, and the streets.
Then they entered.
Victor's golden eyes lifted.
He counted without seeming to count.
Twenty.
Exactly.
Among the twenty they brought back, three of them looked out of place from the group of burly-looking men.
Eon led ten men built like siege towers—broad shoulders, scarred jaws, hands that looked made for crushing bone. Men who had lived by blades, fists, and alley blood.
Behind Brinda came the others.
Two were pretty, dangerously alluring women wearing little more than thin layered fabric draped to tempt more than conceal. Their eyes held the cautious intelligence of low-born mages who had survived by charm and instinct.
