Gunnar
I refused the physicians a second time.
When Torin brought the Grand Physician back to my doors, claiming the council was growing restless over rumors of my collapse, I told him plainly that the next man to cross that threshold uninvited would lose the hand that knocked. They left. Their whispers faded down the vaulted hall.
I stood in the wreckage of my own study and decided I was done living in it.
"Send in servants," I told the guard at my door. "Clear this room. Every scroll, every overturned drawer, back in its place by morning. I won't think clearly surrounded by the mess of my own temper."
The guard bowed and vanished to fetch them. Small satisfaction, but I would take it. A commander who could not master his own study had no business questioning a kingdom.
I sat at my
