The first major blizzard of the northern winter swept over the jagged peaks of the Shadowfall Domain with breathtaking fury, shrouding the black-stone citadel in a swirling vortex of blinding white snow and howling gales.
Standing before the towering arched windows of the Envoy Citadel’s high library, I watched the dense flakes beat against the thick, magically reinforced glass. Inside the chamber, however, the air was comfortably warm, circulated by the intricate thermal aqueduct system that Nora and Master Kael had successfully tested earlier in the autumn.
Across the expansive mahogany reading table, Lord Malakor sorted through a batch of regional winter resource reports delivered by crystal-link dispatches before the mountain passes completely iced over.
"The winter provisions for t
