The Norse siblings lingered long in the banquet hall, doing what they could to calm the shaken hostages. Many of the women still trembled, hollow-eyed and restless, especially those whose husbands had not returned—the knights who had once sworn their swords to the kingdom of Savadra, only to be sent to destroy to destroy the kingdom they swore to protect.
Other than the Sillverstone and the Donalton women, children and elderly, there were also others who were taken hostage. Thirty wives of the knights, burdened with twenty frightened children, refused to return to their homes within the estate. The walls of those places only reminded them of their ordeal.
Out of compassion, the Duchess of Silverstone ordered that they remain in the banquet hall in the main residence, where the hearth burned bright and the shadows felt less cruel.
