The Ashbound guild hall's command room smelled like cold coffee and expensive paper.
Maeve Ashbound sat behind a table covered in financial projections that had been printed, annotated, reprinted, and annotated again until the margins looked like they'd been attacked by a swarm of red-penned wasps.
Two men sat across from her. Henrik Ashbound, the guild's chief financial officer, had the pale complexion of a man who hadn't slept in forty hours and the posture of someone who knew the numbers weren't going to improve no matter how many times he ran them. Gabriel Ashbound, head of sponsorship operations, kept adjusting his glasses because it gave his hands something to do other than shake.
The holographic display on the table showed Ashbound's competition standings. Suspended. The word glowed in flat amber text next to the guild's name like a bruise that refused to heal.
