Kael, Zola, Zym, and Mieza entered the council chamber, the weight of Queen Melinoe's loss still pressing on all of them.
The council was already in uproar. News of the Naja's treachery and the discovery of a traitor within the palace had sent shockwaves through the kingdom, and fear had replaced whatever order had existed before. The torches along the walls flickered erratically, their restless light throwing long, wavering shadows across the assembled faces.
Kael let the noise run for a moment, then cut through it. "We must act swiftly. A council of war — now. We assess the kingdom's defenses, identify the threats, and agree on a plan before anything else happens."
The chamber settled. Maps of Oephidia and its surrounding territories were already spread across the table, lit by the dim glow of enchanted lamps. The four guardians stood over them, but their eyes were elsewhere — each of them turning something over in their mind that the maps could not help them with.
Veridian entered with a measured step, his injuries still evident but his bearing unbroken. His presence drew the room's focus immediately. "We must also consider the question of leadership," he said, his voice carrying the gravity of someone who had thought about nothing else since the attack. "The Naja's aim is to seize control of Oephidia. As long as the throne sits empty, the kingdom is exposed. We must be prepared to answer that."
A murmur moved through the council. No one wanted to say it plainly, but everyone understood. Queen Melinoe had been the centre around which everything held. Without her, the kingdom had no anchor.
Kael's eyes had shifted from their earlier burning red to a steadier blue. "Before we discuss succession, we deal with the immediate threat," he said. "Whoever sits on that throne will be a target the moment they take it. We find the mastermind first — then we install a ruler with the means to protect them." He paused, his gaze moving around the table. "Anyone who takes the throne before this conspiracy is exposed is simply offering themselves up to be the next one killed."
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Mieza turned to Veridian. "Their attack was too precise to have come from the outside alone. What else do you know about how the Naja operate?"
Veridian exhaled slowly. "Their coordination was beyond anything a purely external force could manage. They knew our patrol schedules, our defensive weak points, the internal layout of the palace. This was not intelligence gathered from a distance." He looked around the table. "Someone inside these walls gave it to them. Someone with intimate, trusted knowledge of Oephidia."
Zola's gaze sharpened. "Then that is where we start."
Before the conversation could go further, the chamber doors swung open. A young Naga warrior stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and clearly fighting to keep his composure. "Guardians," he said. "A scout has found something in the western tunnels. Something you need to see."
Kael was already on his feet. "Take us there."
They followed the warrior down through the palace's winding passages and out into the western tunnels. The air grew cooler and heavier as they descended, the walls slick with moisture, the torchlight struggling against the dark.
The scout led them to a small cavern where a group of Naga warriors stood in a tight, silent ring. In the centre of the ring lay a body — one of the Naja. But it was not the body itself that had stopped them all in their tracks.
Carved into the warrior's forehead was a rune, still faintly pulsing with the last traces of dark energy, its lines precise and deliberate — not the mark of a battle but the mark of a binding.
Kael crouched beside the body and studied it carefully, his fingers hovering just above the rune's surface. He could feel the energy radiating from it even without contact. "A control mark," he said. "This binds the will of the one who carries it to whoever placed it there. The bearer does not act of their own accord — they act as an extension of their master."
Mieza crouched beside him. "Then we are not looking for a Naja conspiracy. We are looking for whoever commands the Naja."
Veridian stepped forward from behind them, and something in his expression had changed. His face had gone pale. "I know this magic," he said quietly. "It belongs to Kazu — the Naja's chief sorcerer. He marks those who swear themselves to him. His followers carry this rune as a sign of their oath, and once it is placed, they cannot act against his will." He paused. "Kazu is a master of illusion. If he is the architect of all of this — the theft, the framing of the Garudas, the attack on the palace — then we have been dealing with shadows this entire time. The real threat has never shown his face."
The name settled over the group like a cold weight.
"Kazu," Zym said. "I have heard the name. I had hoped never to have cause to use it."
Zola's jaw tightened. "Then we find him. And we expose the traitor who opened the palace to him."
Kael straightened and looked at Veridian. "Oephidia's army follows the crown. Without the Queen, they have no clear command — and Kazu knows that. If we install a ruler before we have neutralised him, we hand him a target." He held Veridian's gaze. "Unless that ruler is someone the Naja will move against — which gives us the chance to draw them out." He let the implication settle. "The people trust you, Veridian. You are known to them. If you take the throne provisionally, Kazu will be forced to act, and when he does, we will be ready."
Veridian was quiet for a long moment. "You are using me as bait," he said at last. There was no reproach in his voice — only the steady assessment of a man weighing a difficult thing honestly.
"I am," Kael said. "And I will not pretend otherwise. But I will also not let anything happen to you."
Veridian nodded once, slowly. "For Melinoe. Let us return to the palace."
-----
In the darkness of her prison, Melinoe had stopped fighting the chains. Not because she had given up — but because she was smarter than that. She steadied her breathing and turned her mind inward, away from the panic and toward the patience she would need. The seal suppressed her power but it could not suppress her will. Kael would come. She knew him. He would not stop.
She would be ready when he did.
-----
The days that followed were a blur of preparation. The palace was quietly transformed — guards repositioned, patrol routes changed, every known vulnerability patched without alerting those who might be watching from the inside. The council worked under the assumption that the traitor was still among them and had not yet revealed themselves, which meant every decision had to be made as though it were being observed.
Zola moved through the palace's security protocols with methodical precision, cataloguing every weakness the Naja might have already mapped and every entry point that had not yet been compromised.
Zym ranged through the corridors and tunnels with his celestial senses extended, hunting for residual traces of dark magic — any signature Kazu or his marked followers might have left behind.
Kael oversaw the positioning of the guard and worked directly with the palace's senior warriors, preparing them not just to defend but to respond — and to do so without warning, the moment the trap was sprung.
The bait was set. Now they waited.