Somewhere on the continent, very far from the elven kingdom, a young man was sitting on a red velvet sofa reading a scroll.
The room was luxurious.
Marble walls with golden moldings, silk curtains covering enormous windows, a thick carpet covering the entire floor, and carved wooden furniture that probably cost more than the average family earned in a lifetime.
The man had blonde hair combed back with a couple of strands falling over his forehead.
His face was young, he couldn't have been past twenty-five, with sharp features and blue eyes that moved quickly over the scroll.
When he finally finished reading it he let it drop onto the table in front of him.
And he sighed.
"Damn…" he murmured, running a hand over his face with an expression of evident stress.
The scroll was a financial report.
Specifically, the calculation of the compensation the empire owed to the widows and children of the soldiers who had died at the settlement they had outside the Great Forest.
