The hall was long and the portraits were already wrong before any of them had time to look at the door.
They landed in formation out of habit. Marcus first, sword in hand, reading the room from the threshold. Red carpet. Iron torches in wall brackets that burned without smoke. High ceiling with the upper corners lost in dark.
The walls were covered in portraits.
Families, every one of them. Fathers seated at long tables with sons at their right hands. Commanders in dress armor passing weapons to young men who had not grown into the grip yet. A man who looked exactly like his father, then his son, then his son's son, the same wound painted in oil generation after generation down both walls.
Every face had been scratched away.
