The war room smelled like iron and wet stone.

It always did after long days after patrol reports, injury briefings, council adjournments that left no one satisfied. The Frostlands fortress carried memory the way wolves carried scars, and this room remembered every decision that had ever ended in blood.

Kieran stood at the head of the table, forearms braced against its scarred surface, his injured hand wrapped in fresh linen. The rot had been burned back, sealed by magic and pain both, but the ...