The sweet, earthy scent of the pine forests that had welcomed the royal family back to the Blackfang Fortress was entirely gone, systematically replaced by an oppressive, oily stench that clung to the throat like liquid soot. It was the smell of a dying engine, of alchemical decay, and worst of all, the unmistakable perfume of rotting lilies.
The morning sun did not break through the craggy peaks of the Western Ridge. Instead, it was suffocated by a low, rolling bank of pitch-black vapor that did not drift with the mountain winds, but crawled across the stone courtyards, dropping into the ventilation shafts and the narrow subterranean alleys of the lower city like a living, predatory sludge.
