The meeting chamber lay beneath three layers of stone and warded steel, far below a city where sound forgot how to travel.
Torches burned blue instead of orange, fed by old oils and older magic, with their flames bowing inward toward the centre of the room as if paying respect.
At the head of the obsidian table sat Sylas, with Wolfe standing right next to him.
Sylas's mask covered his entire face, gold fused with black alloy, etched so densely with runes and ancient scripts that the surface looked alive. Every symbol told a story of blood, suffering and survival. Only his eyes showed through narrow slits, an impossible blue that cut through the dim like frozen lightning.
Those eyes kept the room silent.
Around the table sat men and women who ruled. Alpha heirs who had renounced crowns for control. Fixers. Pack generals. Archivists who knew bloodlines better than family trees. Wolves whose names never appeared in wars without witnesses.
This was not a council.
