The Stone Mason Guild Hall in the capital was designed to project absolute permanence.
Built three centuries ago, the central chamber was a cavernous space of heavy granite pillars, high vaulted ceilings, and narrow slit windows that let in only sharp, dusty blades of late afternoon sunlight. The air inside always smelled of cold ash, damp mortar, and old parchment. Massive, faded banners hung from the upper galleries, bearing the crests of the founding families who had laid the original cobblestones of the King's Highway.
The centerpiece of the room was a forty-foot-long table carved from a single, massive trunk of black oak. Its surface was scarred with the gouges of daggers from long-settled disputes and the dark rings of heavy ale tankards from decades of closed-door negotiations.
Today, there was no ale. The torches sputtering in their iron sconces cast long, shifting shadows over a room that was suffused with a cold, suffocating tension.
