The Grand Rotunda of the Oakhaven Citadel was a structural masterpiece designed to humiliate anyone who stood at its center.
Its towering walls of polished white marble rose into a massive, open-air dome that looked out over the smoldering volcanoes of the Ashen Reach.
Normally, the six ruling families of Eldergard gathered here only once every ten years to discuss continental governance, update border treaties, and maintain the balance between the elements.
This year was a dangerous exception.
At the urgent, unprecedented request of Grand Magistrate Vane, the Sovereign Conclave had been prematurely convened.
The air inside the chamber was thick with a volatile mix of conflicting magical auras, making the very stone beneath their boots hum with tension.
Sitting in a massive semi-circle above the central floor were the high emissaries and lords of the five other Great Houses, each flanked by their own elite guards.
To the far left sat High Priestess Selena of the House of Tides, arriving all the way from the shimmering water-palaces of Aqualis to represent the Azure Coast.
Next to them were the stonesmith-lords led by High Lord Torin of the House of Stone, whose subterranean seat in Gravenhold commanded the mineral wealth of the Ironroot Highlands.
In the center sat High Chancellor Kaelen of the House of Aether, who descended from Caeloria’s Celestial Peaks clad in brilliant, cloud-white silks.
Flanking them were the swift, wind-woven nobility led by High Lady Lyra of the House of Gale from the Whispering Plains of Zephyra, and finally, shrouded in the shifting, light-eating garments of Veyrholm, sat High Inquisitor Malakor of the House of Noctis, masters of the Umbral Vale.
Grand Magistrate Vane stepped onto the central dais, his crimson robes rustling against the pristine floor.
The collective weight of their elemental gazes pressed down on him like a physical mountain.
“You call us away from our seats before the decade is out, Vane,” boomed Lord Ironwood of House of Stone, his voice cracking like breaking granite.
“You speak of provincial tax anomalies, yet you drain the Council’s shared vaults to fund private vanguard legions.
Explain yourself before we vote to strip House of Embers of its hunting warrants.” Vane stood tall, letting a low, controlled heat emanate from his boots to assert his presence.
He knew he could no longer hide the truth under the guise of an accounting error.
If he wanted their resources, he had to give them a reason to fear.
“I did not call you here to discuss coin, lords of Eldergard,” Vane’s voice resonated clearly through the vast dome, instantly silencing the murmurs of the court.
He looked at each of the five elemental rulers in turn.
“Five years ago, on the outer borders of the Ashen Reach, my mages cornered a fugitive family—a weaver, his wife, and their seven-year-old boy.
When we moved to subdue them, the child’s magic flared, manifesting as a pure, absolute silver light.
In that chaos, that seven-year-old child was somehow able to completely defeat a Tier 2 Ember Seeker and a Smoldering Hound.
Before my forces could recover, Captain Vance—who had left the High House service long ago and was already operating as a rogue—intervened to cloak their escape and smuggle them across the border.” Vane paused, letting the weight of his next words anchor into the silence of the Rotunda.
“I have called the Sovereign Conclave because this child is directly linked to the Pale Star anomaly that shook our skies twelve years ago.
I do not know what his magic is capable of, nor can my scholars find any historical precedent for its nature.
All I know is that his unaligned core mirrors the very same silver frequency that bled into the heavens on the night of his birth.
A rogue, unknown force exists outside our six houses, and we must find him before his awakening destabilizes everything we have built.”