Loreen's POV
The council chamber was not built to make anyone comfortable.
Loreen had sat in this room enough times to know that was intentional. The ceiling was high and vaulted, the stone walls bare except for the banners of each great house hanging in a row along the left side.
The long council table ran the length of the room, dark wood, old and heavy, with chairs placed at strict intervals. There were no cushions. The lords of Eryndor were not meant to settle in. They were meant to work.
At the far end of the room, raised on a low stone platform, sat two chairs. Larger than the rest. The king's seat was on the left. Loreen's was on the right. Between them sat a narrow table with a water jug, two cups, and the day's agenda written out in the court scribe's careful hand.
Loreen had arrived four minutes late.
He had not apologised for it.
