The war hall bore the weight of silence more heavily than any battlefield had, its stone walls holding echoes not of clashing steel but of absence, of names that would no longer be spoken aloud within its chambers except in memory and regret.
Luca stood near the long table carved with the markings of past conflicts, his posture rigid, his gaze lowered to the parchment before him as though the ink upon it carried more weight than the blood that had already been spilled.
His fingers rested against the edge of the wood, unmoving for a moment too long, the tension in his knuckles betraying what his expression did not, a grief held tight beneath discipline that had not yet cracked.
The morning light filtered through the narrow windows, touching the table, the floor, his hands, yet it brought no warmth, no ease, only a quiet clarity that made everything sharper, harder to ignore.
