Location:The Ashenveil seat — the study, the yard, the hall
Date/Time:15 Frostforge 9943 AZI, Temperday
Realm:Lower Realm
His father's doorframes were oak, and the one into the study had been worn pale on the left side at the height of a boy's shoulder. Ryo's shoulder found the place before he'd decided to lean. It was cold. The fire hadn't been lit yet, and the house still held the night in its walls, so that the cold came off the wood into his coat and stayed there.
Lord Ashenveil was at the desk with a lamp. He'd been there when Ryo came down, and Ryo suspected he'd been there a good while before that. Lord Ashenveil had gone gray at the temples in the years Ryo had been away, and the gray had kept going, but the face under it was the one Ryo shaved every morning, older, the same bones. Gray eyes in it. He was reading the sheet Ryo had put down in front of him without a word, and he read it twice.
