The sky split in half, and Wolf Shore was consumed by fire.
Two blocks, nestled deep within the city's heart, became an inferno in the blink of an eye. The explosion was a cataclysmic roar, a deafening thunderclap that echoed the fury of winter lightning striking a dense forest. But instead of the sharp scent of burning wood and crisp leaves, a far more sinister odor permeated the air – the sickeningly sweet and acrid stench of burning human flesh.
From the heart of the blaze, two colossal pillars of smoke billowed into the sky, twisting and churning as they ascended, reaching towards the heavens like ominous fingers of the gods. In the space of a heartbeat, most were reduced to ash, their lives extinguished in the blink of an eye. Those who survived were left to writhe in agony, their screams echoing through the chaos, whether from the unbearable heat or the cruel embrace of their injuries. In this indiscriminate destruction, identity mattered little; all that mattered was the all-consuming fire. Fear silenced any dissent, for to complain was to invite a swift and brutal end.
Through this bedlam, a lone figure rode. Cassian, his jawline sharp and his brown hair catching the shifting light, surveyed the scene from horseback. The blue flames danced in his eyes, reflecting in the polished gold of his armor, which was etched with intricate white designs. A black cape flowed behind him, emblazoned with the sigil of House Valareth: an intertwined golden vine of thorns forming the symbol of infinity. Ten men rode alongside him, a handful of riders in the sea of chaos, their mounts weaving through the pandemonium as they rescued survivors, carrying them to safety or offering what aid they could.
Cassian, who had been leading the rescue effort, paused, his gaze drawn to the merciless flames as they devoured more homes. For a long moment, he was utterly still, his expression an enigma. Was it disappointment that etched those lines around his eyes? Regret that tightened his jaw? Or a tormented blend of both?
As suddenly as it began, the firestorm subsided, leaving behind a city scarred and smoldering. A fragile sense of relief settled over the weary inhabitants. Perhaps, the men whispered to one another, this was the end of the madness, the last flicker of the unnatural blue light that had accompanied the king's descent. Some clung to this hope, while others remained haunted by doubt, their eyes fixed on the settling ashes with the mingled emotions of penitent sinners – half in mourning, half in dread of what might still come.
Suddenly, the mournful tolling of the bells shattered the silence. One ring. Two. Three. Cassian's head snapped up, his face etched with worry. He glanced at his men, then towards the imposing silhouette of Wolf Shore keep, the royal castle that was also his family's seat. The message in those tolls was clear: something had happened, something dire.
Within the stone walls of Wolf Shore keep, the atmosphere was a heavy tapestry woven with conflicting emotions. Quiet hope mingled with the hollow ache of grief. A fragile sense of relief flickered in some hearts, while the chilling specter of fear haunted many others. No single feeling could claim dominance. The throne stood empty, a stark symbol of the uncertainty that had gripped the realm.
Beside the ornate casket stood Maeron, his silence a heavy presence. His gaze was fixed on the still, pale face of his brother, King Darian. A palpable melancholy clung to him, as chilling as the cold stone that permeated the keep. He adjusted the pin on his shoulder, the emblem of the Crownkeeper, the king's most trusted advisor. The weight of it felt heavier now, laden with the burden of his new reality. The keep had always been a place of shadows and secrets to Maeron, its endless corridors and hidden chambers breeding whispers that lingered longer than the lives of men.
The oppressive silence was shattered by a voice, sharp and clear as a blade cutting through silk.
"Alaric."
Alaric stepped into the chamber, his eyes meeting Maeron's across the space, both men sharing the weight of grief. His sword, as ever, hung at his hip, a constant companion. Alaric trusted no place, not even the heart of the king's own stronghold. The sheath of his worn blade bore a small badge: a kneeling warrior, the sigil of House Corilon, the House of the Warrior.
"I am sorry," Alaric said, his voice thick with emotion. "I came as soon as I heard the bells." He scrubbed his hands over his face, but couldn't mask the raw sadness etched in his features.
"He's gone. Darian is dead." Maeron's words were blunt, followed by a hollow scoff and a mirthless chuckle.
Alaric swallowed hard, composing himself before speaking. "Have you heard about the fire?" he asked.
"Fires are a daily dirge in this city." Maeron's gaze remained fixed on the casket. "This isn't the first, but with Darian gone… perhaps it will be the last."
Alaric crossed the room to stand beside Maeron, his gaze falling upon the king's body. He sighed, then a faint smile touched his lips. "King Darian Valareth… First of his name, King of Vaeloria," he murmured, a hint of nostalgia in his voice. "He was a fat boy, remember? Back when we were kids."
Maeron turned to Alaric, a genuine smile softening his features for a moment. "Fat is an understatement, Al," he replied, a flicker of wry humor attempting to pierce the gloom.
Alaric's smile faded. "What happened to him, Maeron? I still can't make sense of it," he confessed, his voice troubled. "He was my friend, a man of honor, the most steadfast person I knew. How did he end up spending his final years ordering cities burned, lives extinguished… even the lives of his own soldiers?"
"You're not alone in your confusion. No one understands it." Maeron offered a slight, rueful smile. "Some whisper it was the onset of old age."
"Old age?" Alaric scoffed. "He wasn't that old, certainly not as old as Sylas." A chuckle escaped him.
"Sylas isn't ancient either! He's only five years older than you, ten years older than me. And I'm thirty-five, Alaric. Careful, or you'll convince me I'm an old man."
"Then look at me," Alaric countered, gesturing to himself. "I'm forty, yet I feel ancient. All that training, all that fighting… what was it for?" He pointed to the streaks of white threading through his rough black beard and the gray woven into his medium-length black hair. Then, he trailed his hand along the smooth edge of the open casket. "The funeral… when will it be held?"
Maeron hesitated. He loathed funerals, the heavy silence that hung over them more than anything. "Possibly in a few days. It's the King's funeral; there are countless arrangements to be made, countless invitations to send." Silence settled over them once more.
"Do you truly believe he took his own life?" Alaric's question broke the stillness.
"Given the things he'd been doing, suicide isn't entirely unthinkable," Maeron replied, finally lifting his gaze from the body to meet Alaric's. He understood the unspoken question that hung in the air between them. The king had been a man of immense power, and such men often attracted those who craved that power for themselves.
Alaric turned fully to Maeron. "You and I both know Darian. Even in his madness, he wouldn't have done it. He endured the loss of half his family in the war, the death of his beloved wife and two infant children… and still, he found the strength to go on." His face contorted in anger, though he knew his words might not change anything.
"Look, Alaric, what's done is done." Maeron's voice was firm, brooking no argument. "Darian is dead. The manner of his death changes nothing."
"But if someone else was responsible, don't they deserve justice?" Alaric pressed.
"Don't delve too deep into this, Al. You'll find yourself in waters too deep to escape." Maeron turned his back on Alaric and began to walk away.
Alaric stood in silence, the weight of grief and unanswered questions heavy on his shoulders, his gaze lingering on his friend's lifeless form.
Maeron paused at the doorway, turning back to address Alaric. "I almost forgot. A council meeting will be held in a few hours; your presence as the Voice of the Realm is required. And you should send a raven north to Nightfall, summon your family to attend the King's funeral." His voice was calm and gentle.
"I will be at the council. And I will inform my family in my own way." Alaric's tone was resolute.
It was midnight when the meeting was held. The council chamber clung to Maeron's skin like cold breath. He stood beyond the towering doors, his silhouette framed by flickering torchlight. The rain had stopped, but its memory lingered in the weight of his soaked cloak and the damp scent that crept in with him. A draft rolled down the hall behind him, curling around his boots like a whisper urging him to turn back. But there was no turning back. Not anymore.
The heavy groan of ancient oak filled the silence inside the chamber as he pushed the doors open. The sound—low, dragging, hollow—broke the brittle tension within like a blade through glass. All heads turned. He felt their gazes before he saw them—sharp, wary, some curious, most suspicious.
He stepped through.
His boots struck the black marble floor with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound echoed off vaulted ceilings and marble pillars carved with the history of dead kings and failed wars. The long table of the royal council stretched before him, its surface polished to a shine but dull under the weight of silence and uncertainty. No one spoke. Even Adalind, who always had a hiss ready behind every smile, seemed for once to bite her tongue.
His cloak dragged behind him, sodden from the storm, leaving faint trails of water like veins down the obsidian tiles. The chamber smelled of cold stone and old fire, of secrets kept too long and truths that had already begun to rot.
He passed Cassian Valareth first—the prince stiff in his steel, Cassian sat near the table's end, his posture stiff, the faint sound of his armor whispering with each restless shift of his body. He tapped one gloved finger against the lacquered surface—slow, deliberate, like a ticking clock winding down. His jaw was tight, his dark hair slightly damp from the rain, and his eyes—stormy and sharp—flicked to the empty seat where his father had once ruled. Just beside him, seated with the quiet weight of an anchor, was Alaric Corilon. The old lord said nothing. He watched.
Maeron did not look at them. He had no need to. Their judgments hung in the air like smoke—lingering, choking, but ultimately useless.
He reached the head of the table. His place. Or rather, the place of the Crownkeeper.
He lowered himself slowly into the high-backed chair. The carved arms of it were cold and smooth beneath his calloused hands, but he gripped them anyway. It grounded him.
No one spoke. Not at first. It was that dreadful kind of silence—brittle, suffocating. The kind that made a man want to rise, make an excuse, and vanish into the night. But none of them left.
He let his gaze sweep the room now, not with curiosity, but calculation. Across from him, Adalind Valareth adjusted her crown with the ease of a woman who'd worn power like perfume for decades. Her red hair glinted in the lamplight as she tucked a strand behind her ear with a practiced gesture. Her dress, a flowing cascade of shadow-black silk, clung to her as if mourning had become her fashion of choice. The ring she wore—a golden vine inlaid with obsidian and the sigil of House Valareth—caught the light as she moved her hand to speak.
Then, at last, a voice rose—smooth as silk, but coiled with venom.
"Isn't this supposed to be the King's Council?" said Queen Adalind, her words laced with impatience. She pushed back a spill of red curls behind her ear, her fingers delicate but sure. The crown on her head caught the low firelight, its black and gold glinting like serpent scales. On her hand, a ring gleamed—a golden band etched with the thorns of House Valareth, its ruby center catching the fire like a drop of fresh blood. She wore a black velvet gown, sculpted to her figure like it had been sewn onto her bones. She looked every bit a queen—but not a grieving one. No tears had ever touched her painted face.
"No," Cassian replied flatly, without even looking at her, "but until we have information, we will remain in silence, Mother."
He didn't raise his voice, but the tension in his tone was sharp enough to cut through steel. Still, he kept tapping the table, his irritation betrayed only by that sound—the only rhythm in the dead air.
Garrik White shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. The master of coin looked toward Adalind with an unreadable expression. His voice was calm, but something about it—measured, almost too neutral—made even silence lean in to listen.
"With all due respect, Your Grace," he said, inclining his head slightly toward Adalind, "I believe Lord Cassian is right."
He wore a high-collared brown tunic, heavy with embroidery that spoke of wealth rather than warmth. Draped over his shoulders was a matching cloak, clasped with the silver sigil of House White—a hawk with outstretched wings. A subtle reminder that his bloodline had once been Aurelion, though no one ever dared say it aloud. His voice was smooth, bearing the faintest lilt of the western hills, though polished now by decades of courtly whispers.
Then—before anyone could respond—a sound split the air. Not loud. Not sharp. But ancient.
A long, slow groan echoed through the high-vaulted chamber. It was the sound of old wood moving under invisible weight, like bones shifting in the deep. Maeron knew that sound well. It belonged to the great doors at the far end of the room—twin slabs of oak carved with the snarling wolves of House Aurelion. Wolves long dead.
The groan dragged across the stone like a warning.
It was the kind of sound that raised the hairs on the back of the neck—not because it was loud, but because it felt like the keep itself had chosen to speak.
Heads turned. Torches flickered in the sconces, their flames suddenly uneasy. And then the door opened—not wide, not all at once, but just enough to let her in.
And she—
She moved like moonlight on a frozen lake. Slow. Unhurried. Effortless.
For a moment, even the fire seemed to pause, as though caught off guard.
She stepped through the threshold with her head held high, back straight, arms relaxed at her sides. No guards flanked her, no handmaidens flustered behind. She needed no one to announce her. She did not enter the room so much as claim it.
Her hair, a striking river of dark red, cascaded down her back in loose waves, the color deepening to copper and flame as it caught the torchlight. It was the kind of red that made people whisper—blood red, they'd call it. Or witchfire.
And her eyes—Maeron saw them even from across the room—were not like Darian's, nor Adalind's, nor any he had seen in court. They were green like the forest at twilight, when the light is nearly gone but everything still watches. There was sharpness there, a hidden edge beneath the calm. Intelligence, too. And something far more dangerous: restraint.
She wore sapphire silk, but not the bright kind that nobles favored. This was darker, deeper—like the midnight sea. The fabric moved like smoke when she walked, catching and releasing light with every step. The dress fit her with purpose: the neckline swept into a daring V, low but never vulgar, while the back dipped in a way that revealed the proud curve of her spine.
It was a dress that didn't beg attention. It assumed it.
Maeron felt his throat tighten—not with desire, not entirely. There was something else beneath it. Something older. Something buried.
She looked like Adalind. But not exactly. Her features had the same fine bones, the same high cheekbones and full lips—but where Adalind's beauty was cold and calculated, Evandra's was warmer, more human… and more dangerous because of it.
She glanced once at her mother—just once—and the look between them passed like a blade in velvet. Not warm, not hostile. Something far colder: distance perfected over years of silence.
Then she moved to her seat without a word. The chair beside Adalind had been empty all evening, though no one dared to say it aloud. As she sat, she smoothed her gown with a single graceful motion and folded her hands neatly in her lap.
She did not fidget. She did not blink too often. She did not look around the chamber for allies or approval.
Even in silence, she commanded.
Adalind turned her head with slow, deliberate disdain, fixing her daughter with a look that barely masked contempt.
"Thank the gods you are here," she said, the words stiff and bitter on her tongue, like something she'd forced herself to swallow. Her voice carried annoyance more than relief—thinly veiled and sharp enough to slice. "We were beginning to think your grief had rendered you bedridden."
Evandra did not rise to the bait. She never did.
Instead, she tilted her head just slightly, her eyes lowering in practiced reverence. Her voice, when it came, was gentle, a feather on still air.
"I was grieving my father's death," she said, barely louder than a whisper. "It was so… terrible how he died."
The words hung in the air like smoke—insubstantial, drifting, hard to pin down. Her tone was mournful, yet pristine, her expression carefully composed. Her lashes fluttered as she blinked, slow and full of practiced weight. Her hands, folded in her lap, trembled just enough to be noticed. Her breath caught once, as though she were steadying herself against the pain.
To the untrained eye, it was a perfect performance. A daughter in mourning. A noblewoman cloaked in grief.
But Maeron had seen too much of the world to be fooled by soft words and lowered eyes.
He watched her carefully. The slant of her gaze, the way her lips curved not downward in sorrow but just slightly at the corner—ever so faintly, almost imperceptibly.
She wasn't mourning.
She was performing.
And she was good at it. Too good.
He'd known her since she was a girl, since she used to mimic her mother's cruelty in mirrors when she thought no one was watching. He had watched her play both victim and victor in the same breath, masterful even then. There was always something theatrical in her sadness—like a swan gliding across the water, hiding the frantic kicks beneath.
And now, that glint. That razor gleam buried behind soft eyes.
She was mocking them. All of them. Her mother. The council. Even Maeron himself.
And no one else seemed to notice.
Except perhaps—him.
The High Priest stirred.
Lord Barrin Solcar turned his head, slow as a sundial shadow, toward the girl in blue. His gaze was pale and unblinking, ghostly in the firelight. Beneath the ornate folds of his golden hood, his expression was unreadable—smooth and still as candlewax before it melts.
"It was a terrible way to end, my lady," he said at last, his voice deeper than expected—smooth, deliberate, with a polished weight that filled the chamber. "Your father was a good man. Flawed, perhaps. As all kings are. But he bore the burden of the crown until the very end."
He paused. Just long enough to make the room still. Just long enough to make Maeron wonder whether he was choosing his next words—or judging them.
"May the Three judge him rightfully… and may Mercy take his soul into her arms."
It should have been a benediction. It sounded like one. The words were correct, the cadence holy. But it didn't feel like a prayer.
There was no warmth in it. No sorrow. Not even the brittle kind that priests sometimes feign for the sake of the grieving. Barrin's voice was like water flowing over stone—slow, cold, impossible to grasp.
And Maeron felt a chill move through him.
There was something about Lord Barrin that had always unsettled him. He wasn't cruel, not in the obvious ways. He didn't sneer like the other priests who had grown fat on their own righteousness. He didn't lash out with doctrine or sermons. No—Barrin's cruelty was different.
It was quiet.
It lived in the way he never raised his voice. In how his hands never trembled. In how his pale eyes never seemed surprised by anything, not even death.
Especially not death.
He spoke of Darian's passing as one might speak of winter's return. Not as a tragedy, but as a certainty. Something written in the bones of the world, waiting patiently for its hour.
And as Maeron looked at him, he saw no sorrow. No respect. Only that same unnerving calm.
Like a man who had seen far too many kings fall to waste tears on this one.
Evandra tilted her head just a little, and Maeron caught the tiniest twitch of her lip again—an almost-smile, flickering for half a breath before vanishing into porcelain.
Mocking, again.
Not just her mother. Not just the priest. But everyone. The court, the gods, the weight of grief itself.
She was a storm behind velvet curtains. A wildfire wearing perfume. And no one in the room seemed to sense the danger except Maeron—and perhaps Lord Barrin, who now studied her with eyes not of judgment, but… interest.
That unsettled Maeron most of all.
Maeron's gaze drifted across the council table like a tide searching for something lost beneath the surface. Faces, familiar and not, swam into focus—some shadowed by grief, others by calculation. He noted them all. Lords dressed in somber silks, advisors with ink-stained fingers, priests cloaked in gold and silence. A gathering of power, of politics and secrets, cloaked in mourning's pretense.
But Maeron saw through it. He had to.
His vision was a blur, the world soft at the edges from exhaustion. He had not slept the night before Darian was found with breathless lips and bloodless skin, and he had not allowed himself rest since. The weight of wakefulness clung to him like wet wool—suffocating, dragging. But his thoughts, despite the haze, moved like steel beneath the storm. Sharp. Cold. Necessary.
He could not afford to be anything less.
He sat at the head of the table—not by title, but by necessity. And even now, with a crown-shaped void looming over them all, no one had dared to claim the chair for themselves.
It was Maeron who rose.
The sound was small, barely a whisper: the creak of worn leather and old wood as he stood, steadying himself against the pull of fatigue. The chamber had not known speech since the queen's snide remark and her daughter's theatrical reply. But now it braced itself for something heavier.
Maeron's voice came like a crack in ice—low, hoarse, but cutting through the silence with purpose.
"Your Grace. My lords. My ladies."
His nod was brief but deliberate. First to the queen. Then to the gathered council. Then to the shadows at the edge of the room where the lesser nobles waited in tense stillness.
"Our king is dead."
The words echoed—not loudly, but with weight. As if the very stones of the chamber took notice, as if they had not quite believed it until they heard it spoken aloud.
For a moment, no one moved.
Not even the flames.
"This council…" He stopped, the word catching in his throat like ash. He swallowed, then cleared his throat with the rasp of a man who had spoken too much and slept too little. "This council is not gathered here to weep. This is not a vigil. It is not a funeral."
He turned his head slowly, looking to each face in turn. Some flinched. Others met his gaze, stone-faced. He could feel the weight of their eyes on him—some questioning, some measuring.
"This chamber is the heart of Vaeloria," he continued, his voice growing stronger, steadier. "And this table—this old, battered table with its scars and wine-stains and bloodmarks—is where the fate of our realm is decided."
He placed his palm flat against the polished wood. It was cold beneath his hand.
"Every village. Every fortress. Every coin in every vault. Every life beneath our banners—they depend on what is said here. On who speaks here. On what we choose when the torches burn low and the realm waits for its next breath."
He paused again, not because he needed to—but because they needed the silence. They needed to feel the weight of it all.
"The King's Council is not a crown," he said, his voice now carrying into the corners of the room. "It is not a throne. It is a blade. And the realm will not wait for our grief to dull it."
He glanced briefly at Adalind—whose expression was unreadable—and then at Evandra, who now sat still and watchful like a cat before the kill.
"We all lost something when Darian died," Maeron continued, his tone quieter now, more personal. "A father. A ruler. A symbol. But symbols cannot make decisions. Ghosts cannot lead armies. And the realm does not pause for tears."
He leaned forward, fingers still pressed to the table, his dark eyes burning beneath the weight of fatigue.
"So let us speak plainly. Let us speak truth. The king is gone. And the realm... the realm waits for us to do something."
He lifted one hand and tapped his fingers once against the wood of the council table. A sharp, deliberate sound. Then again. And again. A rhythm. A summons.
The silence that followed Maeron's words was not the calm before an answer, but the uneasy stillness of a realm standing on the edge of something vast and unknown. It was the kind of silence that held its breath—not in reverence, but in dread.
Then a sound broke it: the soft, deliberate shifting of cloth.
From the far end of the table, the High Priest moved. Lord Barrin Solcar, cloaked in robes the color of old blood, rose with the solemn grace of a man accustomed to reverence. His garb shimmered subtly in the torchlight, the intricate embroidery of the Three Brothers—Mercy, Justice, and Pain—glinting like serpents woven into velvet. A heavy gold chain rested against his chest, its links engraved with runes older than the crown itself.
He placed his pale hands atop the table, fingers interlaced in quiet devotion. His hood hung low, casting deep shadows over his face—but not deep enough to conceal the sharp glint of his eyes. Cold eyes. Knowing eyes.
When he spoke, his voice was like water sliding across stone—soft, steady, and ancient.
"Lord Maeron speaks true," he intoned, each word shaped with care, as if delivered to the gods themselves. "The throne is not merely a seat. It is a pillar—perhaps the last—that holds up this world."
His gaze swept the council chamber, slow and assessing. The flames in the braziers bowed low as if the room itself bent to listen.
"While the soul of King Darian stands before the Three, his deeds laid bare, we—the living—are called to act. Not to weep. Not to falter. But to choose. Delay is not reverence—it is rot. Sentiment is not virtue—it is weakness dressed in silk."
He stepped forward from his seat, the sound of his robes trailing behind him as soft as falling ash. He spoke not just to Maeron now, but to the room, to the stone walls, to the realm itself as if his words might echo through time.
"The Faith mourns, yes. But mourning is not an excuse for inaction. It is a crucible. A moment of fire through which leaders are either reforged—or revealed for what they truly are."
He turned at last toward Maeron and inclined his head—not in subservience, but with the cold precision of a man giving approval to a necessary tool.
"You carry the burden now, Lord Crownkeeper. The heaviest burden of all: the space between what was, and what must be. But you are right. The realm watches. And the gods..." His lips curved faintly, not into a smile, but something more unsettling. "The gods judge not only the dead. They watch the living. They judge the choices made when the blood is still wet."
And just like that, he returned to his seat, folding into silence as though he had never spoken. No rustle of robes. No shifting of breath. He moved like a shadow obeying unseen winds.
Maeron didn't move. He watched the priest for a long moment, jaw tight, knuckles white against the polished blackwood of the council table. Something in his chest coiled—an old, familiar heat. Disgust. Distrust. Contempt.
He had never been a man of faith. His gods had names like steel and strategy and necessity. His gospel had been carved into the flesh of men on the battlefield and written in the quiet decisions no one else wanted to make. He had seen too many prayers go unanswered. Too many good men die with the names of the Three on their lips and nothing but cold dirt waiting to receive them.
Maeron exhaled slowly through his nose, the breath steady but hard-edged. He forced down the bile that crept up the back of his throat—the bitter taste of piety dressed as power.
He turned his gaze on Barrin, not with rage, but with something colder: dismissal.
"Right…" he said at last, his voice quieter now, heavy with weariness and dusted with scorn. "Let's not pretend the gods guided this."
The words hung in the air, sharp as glass, unapologetic. And the way Maeron said them—it wasn't defiance. It wasn't even disrespect.
It was truth. Raw and bloodied.
Because in this room, filled with silken lies and velvet-draped daggers, truth was the only weapon Maeron still trusted to be sharp.
Maeron leaned forward, slow and deliberate, the leather of his coat creaking softly beneath the strain of movement. His fingers, calloused and steady, drifted toward the edge of the table where a single folded parchment lay—its corners curled from handling, its once-pristine wax seal broken and crumbled. The seal, bearing the crowned direwolf of House Corilon, lay like a shattered oath beside it.
He picked up the letter, holding it between two fingers with quiet finality, and for a moment, no one breathed.
"The king," Maeron began, his voice low and firm, "did not leave us in the dark."
He lifted the letter slightly for the council to see, the flickering candlelight catching along the faded script.
"He left us this. Not some whispered dream or cryptic riddle from beyond the veil. Not a prophecy to be twisted into ambition." His voice cut sharper now, slicing through the tension like a whetted blade. "But words. Ink. Truth. In his own hand."
His gaze swept the table, slow and piercing, stopping briefly on each face—Adalind's tight-lipped composure, Garrik's calculating stillness, Lord Barrin's unnervingly placid expression. He looked at Cassian last, who sat rigid and pale, his knuckles white around the arms of his chair.
"This is Darian's will," Maeron continued, louder now. "His final act—not as a king touched by the gods, not as a martyr for a broken realm—but as a man. A father. A brother. A ruler who knew what was coming."
He let the silence settle again before adding, "You may question it later. You may rage or argue, try to pick it apart and twist it into something else—but not until you've read it."
His tone dipped into something quieter, colder.
"You'll all read it. Every word. And when you do… you will understand that what comes next was not my ambition. Nor yours. This—" he held the parchment higher, then set it on the table again, nudging it forward—"this was the King's command."
He pushed the letter down the table with a firm hand, its path slow and deliberate. The sound it made—the faint rasp of paper against polished oak—was impossibly loud in the silence that followed.
No one reached for it at first.
It lay there between them, small and fragile, and yet it weighed more than steel. A single piece of parchment that could shift the spine of the realm.
Finally, one hand moved—hesitant fingers brushing against it. The letter passed from lord to lady, councilor to priest, its progress solemn and tense. The parchment rustled like dry leaves in the wind, delicate yet dangerous, every motion scraping across the stillness of the chamber.
Some eyes flicked over the words quickly, brows tightening, jaws clenching. Others lingered, as if hoping to find a different meaning buried between the lines. But no such comfort waited in the ink. There was no ambiguity. No room for denial.
The King's wishes were plain.
A quiet dread settled into the bones of the room. Not fear of the dead king's decision—but of the consequences it would unleash.
Maeron watched them, not the letter. He studied how hands trembled or held too still. How eyes narrowed, darted, avoided. The words of the dead had a way of unraveling the masks of the living.
Whispers formed but died on the edge of lips. Questions burned in the throat but never became sound. No one wanted to be the first to speak, to cast judgment on the letter's contents—or the man who now wielded it.
The chamber had grown colder, and it wasn't the stone or the draft.
It was the kind of cold that crept under the skin, quiet and intimate, like breath on the back of the neck. A hush so complete it rang in Maeron's ears, louder than steel on steel. The kind of silence that didn't come from peace—but from something far older. Far heavier.
As though Darian's spirit truly lingered here, in the cracks of the stone, between the flickers of the torchlight. Watching. Listening. Waiting to see what his death would buy.