Iron Hearth Castle – Riven's Private Quarters. Midday – One Week After the Family Dinner.
A torrential downpour lashed against the rugged stone walls of Northreach. The sky was a bruised shade of purple, and the thunder that rattled the castle's foundations was tectonic in its intensity, echoing through the jagged mountain passes. Yet, as loud as the celestial storm was, it could not compete with the pathetic, soul-wrenching moans emanating from the master suite of the eldest Sudrath son.
"Cough... Wheeze... Mother... tell the ancestors I'm coming... the light is fading..."
Stretched out across a King-size bed—its silk sheets embroidered with a pattern of crossed swords and shields—was a giant in a state of absolute, unprecedented ruin. General Riven Sudrath, the "War Lion of the North," the conqueror of the Southern plains, and the slayer of the Swamp Basilisk, was currently a helpless heap beneath a mountain of thick wool blankets.
