Subrind was approaching fall. The leaves had begun their slow transformation, edges curling brown and gold, brittle with the promise of winter. The air had grown colder these days, the kind of cold that settled deep into bones.
The mood inside the palace was just as cold.
Two ministers stood in an empty corridor, their voices low and contemptous. They had been colleagues for decades, bound by shared secrets and mutual self-interest, and in moments like this, they spoke with the unguarded honesty of men who believed no one was listening.
"I knew from the very beginning," the first minister, Solam, muttered, his voice filled with barely contained disgust. "I told all of you. Draven is incompetent and weak and utterly unfit to rule Subrind. And this war is proving exactly what I said. "
