(eng) Morgan Rice - Of Crowns and Glory 05 by Soldier Brother Sorcerer

Author:Soldier, Brother, Sorcerer [Soldier, Brother, Sorcerer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lucious strode along the corridors of Felldust’s five-sided tower, almost pushing past the servant who led him in the direction of its council chambers.

They kept you waiting long enough, his father’s voice whispered in his ear.

Oh, the servants had talked about extending every courtesy to him, but they’d made a poor show of it. He’d had wine, and a room more suited to some passing merchant. Even the slaves he’d seen had been gone before he could have any fun with them.

Perhaps they heard about you.

Now, though, the servant ahead of him led him up a spiral staircase to the spot where a set of double doors closed together in a pentagon with a stone mask carved at each of the points. There were no guards at the door, which Lucious found a little surprising. A leader always had enemies.

“The First Stone will see you now,” the servant said, then turned and left without so much as opening the doors for Lucious. Did he expect a king to open his own doors now?

He did, but with bad grace. Not least because the heavy stone of the doors meant he had to set his shoulder to them in order to get them to move.

The room beyond must have taken up the whole space of that level of the tower. Its sides followed the outer walls of the tower, rising in unadorned dark stone that seemed far too grim for a space where rulers gathered. There should have been gold there. There should have been silks.

There should have been a throne, but instead, there was a five-sided stone table, with five chairs of blackened wood set around it. The table was the one place where gold shone, lines of it poured into grooves of the stone in what seemed to Lucious like abstract patterns. It took him a moment to realize that it was a map that sat there, showing Delos and Felldust along with the southern lands and the frozen wastes.

Places that you will never rule, his father’s voice said.

Only one of the chairs around the table was occupied, the man there looking at Lucious evenly as he walked into the council chamber. Even if the servant hadn’t said who was waiting for him, Lucious would have recognized Irrien, the First Stone.

He was dark-haired and bronze-skinned, broad-shouldered, younger than Lucious might have thought, with the kind of strength to him that could easily have run to fat in another man, but in him just spoke of power. He had looks that might have come from a bard’s story, and Lucious had heard plenty of how he had taken his position as much through his ability to inspire as through his strength of arms. His clothes were of dark velvet and leather, and he wore gloves despite being indoors. A scarf hung loose around his throat, but Lucious guessed that he would pull it up whenever he went outside, to keep out the endless dust. A blade in a black leather sheath sat on the table, large enough that Lucious doubted he could have wielded it.

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