The war room was three degrees colder than the sky outside, but the air inside it was thick enough to suffocate a bull.
The emergency summons had not been delivered by a page; it had been delivered by the sudden, terrifying silence of the fortress alarm stones. The low, rhythmic humming of the peripheral quartz had completely died, choked out by the freezing air of the solstice blizzard that was currently rattling the iron grates of the windows.
Silas stood at the apex of the leather-backed map table, his massive chest heaving beneath his heavy iron-and-leather brigandine. He wasn't laughing tonight. The manic, theatrical amusement that had defined his feast in Chapter 78 had been utterly scorched away, replaced by a raw, rabid volatility that turned his golden irises into two burning sl
