The tremor did not stop.
It faded from the chamber, subtle enough that no elder called it out, no guard reached for a weapon. But Aria felt it the way bones feel storms before clouds gather. Deep. Slow. Immense.
The Council's voices blurred into distant noise.
Below.
Something below had shifted.
Damien's hand found her wrist, not restraining, but anchoring. His eyes searched hers, sharp and immediate.
"You feel it too," he said quietly.
"Yes."
Not panic.
Recognition.
The kind that arrives when instinct outruns language.
Aria stepped back from the center of the chamber, already turning toward the doors.
Maelis noticed.
"Where are you going?" the elder demanded.
Aria didn't stop walking.
"To the foundation."
A ripple of unease passed through the Council.
The foundation was not symbolic. It was literal. The oldest part of the Citadel. The stone that predated every throne, every pact, every lineage that now argued over authority.
Few living wolves had seen it.
