The door to the Chamber of Blades closed behind Soren with a sound like a guillotine's promise, clean, final, and a little too loud.
His pulse scaled up a notch. The room beyond was built for intimidation.
Rows of weapons, more artifact than armament, lined the whitewashed walls: swords, axes, matched daggers, each in a custom bracket, each so perfectly maintained that the scent of oiled steel crowded out the more subtle notes of wax and chalk and old sweat.
Soren walked the narrow aisle down the room's center, making himself look, making himself catalog, even as a learned flinch made his shoulders tight.
At the far end, under a cone of cold light, Master Halric Dane sat at a work table hunched over a longsword.
He was running a block of whetstone along the blade in long, even strokes, slow, deliberate, with no wasted motion. He didn't look up or acknowledge Soren's approach. For a moment, only the sound of stone grating on steel moved the air.
