Every familiar building, every winding street, the family-owned mines and estates in the distance...
All of this is the foundation that the Laurent family has fought for over two hundred and thirty-seven years, built by ancestors with swords and blood, with wisdom and loyalty, carved from this barren stone.
"Honor is life; family above all." This was his father's admonition, old Earl Laurent, as he held his hand at his coming-of-age ceremony, engraving it in his bones, word by word.
Now, this admonition tightened around his heart like a burning iron chain.
He slowly turned around, his gaze sweeping across everything in the study. On the walls, portraits of ancestors from past generations hung silently, those dignified or wise eyes seeming to penetrate time, staring at him, scrutinizing how this present Family Head would handle a crisis capable of overturning the family.
