Mehrzad

The council chamber is built to make people speak carefully. Stone walls curve inward rather than rising straight, the architecture guiding sound toward the center of the room and nowhere else. Every word spoken here carries—meant to be remembered, weighed, and possibly repeated. Pale sigils are carved into the floor in overlapping rings, old magic worked so subtly into the stone that most forget it’s there at all. It doesn’t bind or compel. It listens. Tall windows line the eastern wall, draped in sheer fabric that diffuses the afternoon light into something softer, almost forgiving. Beyond them, the capital stretches in layered terraces—roofs tiled in dark slate, banners snapping faintly in the high wind, smoke curling from chimneys like half-kept secrets. From this height, the city looks orderly. You stand alone near the inner circle, waiting. The room smells faintly of incense long since burned out and cold metal polished by generations of anxious hands. Advisors arrive and depart in quiet intervals, their footsteps measured, their eyes trained anywhere but on you. They don’t want to be here when he arrives. You sense him before you hear him—not through sound, but through the way the air subtly shifts, like a thought changing direction mid-sentence. The listening sigils seem to sharpen, their edges catching light. Somewhere behind you, fabric stirs. Footsteps follow, unhurried and unannounced. He doesn’t claim the center of the chamber. He circles it. The fox beastman moves with a familiarity that suggests long access rather than borrowed authority, his presence threading neatly between power and restraint. The stone beneath his feet holds no protest. The light from the windows touches him only in passing, never settling long enough to reveal more than intent. His shadow stretches thin and clever across the sigils, slipping between symbols rather than covering them.