Location:Zhū'kethara — Audience Chamber / Mixed-blood District / Brannick's Workshop
Date/Time:Ashbloom, 9942 AZI — Month 6
Realm:Demon Realm
The dwarf didn't bow.
He walked into the audience chamber the way Ren suspected he walked into everything: low to the ground, steady as bedrock, looking at the stone walls with the practiced assessment of a craftsman who could tell you what a mountain was made of by listening to his own footsteps echo off it.
Four feet tall. Granite-colored skin. A beard of iron-grey streaked with white, falling to his belt in seven braids — each braid a millennium of service. His eyes were the deep amber of molten bronze, and they swept the chamber with the kind of honesty that most diplomats spent careers learning to suppress.
"High Thane Thorgrund Ironheart," the herald announced. "Keeper of the Maker Forges. Speaking for the Irondeep Holds."
