The air inside the Admiralty War Hall smelled of salt and coal dust. Blueprints sprawled across the long oak table, weighed down by brass paperweights shaped like sea serpents and galleons. Lanterns flickered against the stone walls, casting shifting shadows over naval charts and elevation sketches of hulls that had yet to touch water.
King Bruno stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, eyes sharp. The admirals and shipwrights surrounding him were among Elysea's finest naval minds—grizzled veterans of past maritime conflicts and craftsmen who had shaped the very hulls that once ruled the Gulf of Theros.
But those ships were relics now.
