The imperial study had become a fortress of paper and ink, a silent battlefield where the weapons were not swords of ice but testimonies and legal precedents. For days, the hearth had burned low, casting long, flickering shadows over the stacks of vellum that threatened to consume Soren's mahogany desk. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and the cold, metallic tang of Soren's focused magic.
Soren sat at the center of this chaos, his obsidian crown resting on a side table, his hair disheveled, and his eyes rimmed with the red fatigue of a man who had forgotten the concept of sleep.
