Writing
"It wasn’t Valentin’s rule that unnerved Justik, he decided as he walked his mount to the gate and showed his papers. It was the rumors. Whispers rippled through the streets of Baris, hinting at a story more grainy than Baron Valentin’s porridge-bland pronouncements. Loyalists to the late Captain gathered in every inn. Deterikh’s old diplomat, Dion, hid in half the town’s basements, or in an abandoned mine in the Estuzias, amassing an army of shadows.
Writing
"The ghost of Deterikh’s court alchemist roamed the halls of the keep. Some even said that it wasn’t Valentin who’d brought down Datsia, but his slave Taneh, secretly trained in the dark arts."