The war room filled the way a lung fills before a shout.
They came in the same order they always did, the Marquises first and the Earls behind them, boots scuffing the carved stone, cloaks shedding the cold of the upper rings. Somebody's scabbard knocked the doorframe on the way through and three heads came round for it. But the sound was wrong.
There was no mumbling this time, none of that bright disordered noise that had filled the chamber after the gate held. The men who spoke did it close to one another's ears, with a hand half raised to cover it, and the men who didn't speak looked at the table.
The table had been laid with nothing on it at all. Not even water. Every man who came through the door read that correctly and sat down quieter than he had meant to.
Northern stood at his place and went down the line of them one face at a time, and watched the light in their eyes.
