The throne was uncomfortable.
Aldren had never said this aloud — kings didn't complain about thrones the way farmers didn't complain about soil. But the Iron Throne of Ashenveil was, by any objective assessment, a terrible chair. Cast from a single mold of black iron, hammered into shape by the Master Builder's forge-team forty years ago, it was designed to look imposing rather than to support the lumbar spine of a man who sat in it for six hours during formal court sessions. The back was too straight. The armrests were too wide. The seat was slightly concave in a way that guaranteed numbness below the waist after the second hour.
