The council chamber smelled like expensive incense and it was currently a lot louder than it usually was.
Normally the meetings here were quiet and boring, but today the nobles sitting around the long mahogany table wouldn't stop shouting at each other with faces that were turning an ugly shade of red.
"The report is absolute nonsense!" one of the elders from the Silver-Wing family shouted, hitting the table with his palm. "Five-Shard knights don't just get overwhelmed by a standard gate breach. Either the leadership was incompetent or the intel was wrong."
"Watch your mouth, Duke Vahn," a man in the black and silver armor of the Flint family snapped, his eyes narrowing. "Our house has already paid the price for this mission. Kenny is lucky to even be alive after what he faced inside that gate."
Everyone in the room looked toward the far end of the chamber, where a man sat slumped in a high-backed chair.
