The council chamber on the top floor of Skull Fortress resembled a deep well overturned on a reef.
Heavy granite walls sealed it off on every side, with only a narrow vent in the center of the vaulted ceiling.
Moonlight leaked through like an elongated silver needle, piercing the floor with lifeless stillness.
A round table stood in the center, bearing three lamps fueled by sea-beast oil. Their flames did not flicker but burned straight upward, giving off an eerie, sickly green light.
The lamplight stretched the shadows endlessly across the walls, twisting the seated figures into monstrous shapes with claws and fangs bared.
Rosa sat in one of the seats, her single eye sweeping coldly over the round table.
Karn the Bonecrusher was the first to enter her sight.
The beast had propped both feet, clad in spiked boots, directly on the tabletop. He clutched a raw leg of lamb that was still seeping blood and tore into it, bones and all.
Blood dripped down his tangled beard, striking the tabletop with a clear, irritating sound.
Drip, drip.
Rosa sneered inwardly. Brainless fool. All he knows is eating and killing. Once I get the venom formula, beasts like him should be the first to go.
Her gaze shifted. Viper Sanders huddled in his chair like a sick snake coiled upon itself.
He repeatedly polished his poison-coated dagger with deerskin, his movements meticulous but his gaze constantly wandering. Every few seconds, he glanced back at the chamber's dark corners, as though an assassin might leap out at any moment.
Rosa scoffed. If something really happened, what could that little knife stop?
Beside him, Moro, the old charlatan, was murmuring prayers no one understood.
He rubbed several yellowed divination shells between his fingers, occasionally holding them beneath a lamp to study