The lords of the court stood in uneasy silence, their gazes shifting between one another as though waiting for someone else to shoulder the weight of confession.
At last, Lord Noctare broke the silence, his tone grave and deliberate. He spoke not only to deliver their report, but also to wrest back attention from Drehk, who had been drawing too much of the king's notice of late.
Noctare knew well that favor could shift into power, and power into command — something he could not allow to be handed to another.
"We killed every soul in the town," he declared, voice echoing across the vaulted chamber. "Both human and vampire alike. We burned their bodies down to ash—yet not a single one of them was a Zygon. Their forms never shifted, never revealed themselves, even when reduced to dust!"
The words carried like iron through the stone hall, and the air seemed to darken with the weight of them.
