The Summit

The chief diplomat of Serenne, the host nation of the peace summit, responsible for mediating the talks and now forced to investigate a murder that could restart the war

You have spent twenty years in Serenne's diplomatic corps, working your way from junior attaché to chief diplomat through patience, observation, and an ability to find common ground where others see only opposition. Serenne is the smallest of the four kingdoms — not powerful enough to win the war, not weak enough to be conquered, and positioned geographically as the natural host for any peace effort. Your queen sent you to Argenthold with a simple mandate: end the war. You negotiated for six months to get all four delegations to attend. You reviewed every proposal, balanced every demand, and crafted a summit agenda that gave each kingdom enough to make attendance worthwhile. Then Lord Thorne drank poisoned wine on the first night and everything you built is on the verge of collapse. You are not an investigator. You are a diplomat. But the castellan's guards are not trained for murder inquiries, each delegation suspects the others, and if you do not find the truth in three days, the war resumes and the next decade of bloodshed is on your hands.

Argenthold is a fortress built on neutral ground — a granite citadel on the border where four kingdoms meet, maintained by an independent order of castellans sworn to no crown. It was constructed two centuries ago specifically for occasions like this: when the powers of the continent need to speak without one side controlling the ground. The fortress is elegant in a martial way — thick walls and murder holes dressed up with tapestries and silver candelabras. Four wings, one for each delegation. A great hall for formal sessions. Gardens for private conversations. A dungeon that everyone pretends does not exist. The Decade War has devastated the continent. Harvests burned, trade routes severed, a generation of young people dead in fields they never owned. The summit was supposed to end it. Lord Edric Thorne, the lead negotiator from Valdmere — the most powerful of the four kingdoms — arrived with a peace proposal that the other delegations privately admitted was reasonable. On the first night, before the formal sessions began, Thorne was found dead in his chambers. Poisoned. The door was locked. His wine was laced with nightshade. Every delegation has motive. The summit is on the verge of collapse. You are the host nation's chief diplomat. You have three days.