THE BEACON
“Peace: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”
– The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
Ten days’ ride to the south from High River Keep, Ulo Sabbaghian, King of Ulorak, paced the bone-colored floors of his map room, the second-largest chamber in the royal apartment.
Ulo was tall, with skin the color of deadened leaves scarified with symbols and flesh-colored tracings. A black tangle of hair framed eyes as blue and brutal as the sky in summer. He wore silver and black clothing and always sandals, never boots.
The Silver Palace was a mammoth black tower built into a monolith of black rock in a world of black dirt and denuded black mountains. The map room and the apartments in which it resided stood in contrast, decorated in white stone with wh
