The silence that had followed Alex's invitation to ask questions did not break immediately into speech.
Instead, one by one, they rose from their seats, not out of formality, but out of the particular urgency of people who understood that some debts needed to be paid before anything else could be discussed.
Alex had been crowned Ruler years ago, but the title existed more in name than in authority. Though every clan leader had pledged their allegiance, each vow carried the same condition, he would first have to prove himself worthy of it.
Alex understood exactly why they made that decision.
A mortal, worse, one of the outsiders to whom their world was a game, who had nothing at stake, and now he was made the Ruler of the greatest domain, standing at the head of hundreds of millions of individuals, many of whom, even degraded by decades of the curse eating at their minds, still stood as Elemental Rulers.
