The Grand Hall of Greyhart Stronghold echoed with tense silence. It was an austere chamber carved into the heart of the mountain itself, where the stone walls still bore the claw marks of wars long past. Faded banners hung heavy above the arched ceiling—trophies of ancient bloodshed, old victories, and older grudges.
Selene stood beside Ronan at the center of it all. The council sat in a crescent arc above them—twelve elders, each robed in dark fur and battle-worn leather, their eyes gleaming like sharpened glass. Her presence, cloaked though she was, had already stirred unease, but now the tension had crystallized into something brittle and cold.
"Is this a jest, Ronan?" Elder Torric barked. "A vampire standing in our holiest chamber? You've not only disgraced your position—you've brought a threat into our very den!"
Ronan didn't flinch. "She came to warn us."
"Warn us?" another elder hissed. "Or weaken us?"
Selene raised her chin. "Simon is manipulating both courts. He wants this war. He's moved to isolate Ronan and remove me—so you'll tear each other apart and he can crown himself king of ash."
A scoff rippled through the elders. One of them—Elder Berrin—leaned forward. "And we're to believe the word of a blood-sipper?"
"She's not just speaking for herself," Ronan said, stepping forward. "She's risking everything to stop what's coming."
Berrin sneered. "Perhaps she should have stayed dead, then."
Ronan's snarl was immediate, low and guttural. Selene touched his arm—lightly, but enough. He breathed, just once, and pulled back.
The hall fell silent again.
Then, the great stone doors at the far end boomed open.
Heads turned. Warriors readied their weapons. The guards along the balcony dropped to a crouch.
From the snow wind outside stepped Lucien.
His stride was deliberate, armored shoulders gleaming with sigils of vampire nobility. His presence carried weight, and silence followed him like a cloak. Two guards followed, but it was clear—they weren't there to protect him. They were there because he allowed it.
Lucien's crimson gaze swept the room and landed on his sister.
Selene blinked, stunned. "Lucien…"
"I received your message," he said simply. "And I saw what Simon was doing. I've intercepted correspondence from his envoys. He's not just using you, Selene—he's playing both sides. Stirring ancient blood feuds. Funding the Shroudbound."
Gasps rippled across the hall. Even the most skeptical elders exchanged wary glances.
Lucien stepped forward and unfurled a scroll. The sigils on it shimmered faintly with vampire sealing magic.
"This," he said, "is a direct order from Simon to one of his spies in your camp. He calls for Selene's execution—by your hands. Framed as justice, but meant as a provocation."
He dropped the scroll into the center of the floor.
Elder Torric snarled, rising from his seat. "You lie."
"No," Lucien said. "I didn't want to believe it either. But Selene told me to look. And what I found…"
He looked toward his sister again.
"She was right."
The silence was now laced with something else: fear.
Selene moved slowly to the scroll and placed beside it the note she had received—the one scrawled in desperate ink at the Observatory Tower.
"He knows. They know. You are not safe. The wolves are not safe. The Council is listening to the wrong voice. Leave tonight."
She turned to the council. "Someone from sent this to me. I don't know who, but they didn't want bloodshed. And they knew something was coming."
A tense murmur began to spread—whispers between elders, wariness rising in the room like mist off the cold stone.
Then—
A shadow leapt from above.
Time slowed.
Selene's senses flared.
A hooded figure dropped from the rafters like a wraith—dagger gleaming, eyes wild with fervor.
Ronan moved first, tackling Selene to the side.
Lucien's blade was out in a heartbeat, catching the assassin midair and slamming them to the floor with a brutal clang of steel on stone.
The figure twisted—trapped—and without hesitation, drove the dagger into their own throat.
Blood sprayed across the marble.
Selene clutched her chest, gasping.
Lucien knelt over the body, pulling back the hood.
A Shroudbound agent.
Markings were carved into his skin like a ritual.
Before death fully took him, he whispered a single word through torn lips:
"Penance."
Then he went still.
No one moved.
The hall was silent—shocked.
Ronan helped Selene to her feet, his hand lingering against her back.
Lucien rose slowly.
"Now," he said, voice hard, "do you see? This is no longer politics. It's a holy war. And Simon is feeding it."
Elder Torric's face had lost its color. The council sat in heavy silence, shaken.
After a moment, the elder in the center—the oldest of them all, his voice thin but ironclad—spoke:
"The council will deliberate. But judgment… is no longer simple."
They were dismissed.
As Selene, Ronan, and Lucien exited the hall together, Ronan murmured under his breath.
"That was too close."
Selene nodded. "And someone still knows too much."
Lucien glanced toward her. "You think the one who sent the note is still watching?"
"I think they're closer than we think," she said.
Ronan's hand found hers.
"We'll find them."