The manor's interior was a study in contrasts.
Outside, Northford was all grey stone and frozen mud, the kind of cold that seeped into bones and stayed there. Inside, the walls were paneled in dark wood, the floors covered in thick carpets that muffled footsteps, and the air smelled of beeswax and old books and the faint, sweet smoke of a fire that had been burning for hours. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, their facets catching the candlelight and scattering it in fragments across the walls.
Kaelen had expected a frontier outpost, rough, utilitarian, the kind of place where function mattered more than form. But this manor had been built by someone who cared about appearances a lot.
Lysander's stood next to the governor talking, the warm and steady, and the bond pulsed with something that felt like relief.
(You're staring) Lysander said it was a voice from within.
I'm not he whispered he still could not speak through the bond like him.
