Mawhold

Mawhold is capital, arsenal, prison, warning bell, and devouring architecture. Its stacked gates, iron teeth, smoke vents, murder stairs, feast caverns, cistern throats, and black halls teach the same lesson from childhood: height matters less than which door closes behind whom. The fortress is old enough that some lower stones have lost their maker marks. It smells of forge smoke, boiled leather, bitter water, lamp fat, and crowded fear. In festival fire it can look grand enough to worship. In siege silence it becomes a mouth waiting to decide who belongs inside.