The sun had bled into the horizon like a gutted stag, staining the sky in smears of crimson and bruise-purple as evening cloaked the mansion in its chill embrace.
Torches flared to life along the battlements, sputtering shadows that danced like uneasy spirits across the stone walls, while servants scurried through the inner yards with trays of bread and salted meats, their faces drawn tight from the day's endless labors.
The air carried the bite of coming frost, laced with the smoke of hearth-fires and the distant tang of horse sweat from the stables.
Everyone was busy—cooks bellowing orders in the kitchens, guards drilling in the fading light, stewards tallying ledgers by candle-glow—but Aragon moved through it all with the unhurried stride of a man who owned the chaos, his boots thudding soft on the flagstones as he made for the grand entrance.
A page caught him at the threshold, the boy no more than fourteen summers, his livery rumpled and his cheeks flushed from running.
