The carriage came to a slow halt beneath the creaking branches of some towering amber-leafed pine, whose wide trunks seemed older than any stone wall in Maddach.
When Baron Gorath Maddach stepped down from the carriage, the scent struck him first.
Tea.
The entire air, crisp and clean, carried the dry-sweet bitterness of steeped leaves. Gorath took it in slowly.
Not the kind that was perfumed or artificial.
The real thing. Old leaves. Sun-dried. Roasted in warm silence.
A breeze brushed the collar of his coat as he turned his gaze to the garden.
Ancient trees, both massive and miniature, shaped with discipline and vision, stood arranged in elegant layers. Stones were placed deliberately beside mossy lanterns.
A koi stream passed beneath a red-arched bridge so slender it barely seemed to touch the ground. Bamboo chimes clicked gently overhead.
This was the world of Qorhai, and in its brightest form of all, the estate of House Qorhai.
