The council chamber was crowded, the air thick with tension and the smoke from the torches that flickered in their iron sconces. The long table was covered with maps and reports, but at its center lay the fragments. Runa had brought from the Rift dark stones etched with symbols that seemed to pulse in the firelight, as if they still held some echo of the magic that had carved them.
Torvin stood at the head of the table, a fragment in each hand, his scarred face carved from stone. He had been studying the symbols for hours, turning them over, holding them to the light, comparing them to every text in Frosthold's library. His frustration was palpable, a coiled tension in his shoulders that reminded me of Kaelen in the days before a battle.
"They match no northern language," he said finally, his voice flat. "Not the old tongue, not the runes of the Mountain Watch, not any dialect I've ever seen."
