The air in the courtroom was no longer heavy with political tension; it was thick with the suffocating scent of grief and panic. The news of Lord Julian's disappearance had spread like a plague through the palace.
Eliosa sat on a velvet bench near the dais, her face buried in a lace handkerchief. Her shoulders shook with rhythmic sobs that sounded perfectly heartbroken. "It is my fault," she wailed to the circle of nobles surrounding her. "I turned my head for one moment to lead a prayer... I told them it was dangerous, but he was just a curious boy! I should have watched him closer!"
The nobles, moved by her "devotion" and apparent guilt, patted her shoulders. "Do not blame yourself, Saintess," one whispered. "You are but one woman against the creeping gloom."
The heavy doors swung open. Prince Keibrant entered, his face a mask of grim solemnity. Beside him walked Cornelius Stoutforge, who carried a silver tray draped in white silk.
The room went deathly silent as Keibrant signaled Cornelius to reveal the contents. On the tray lay a jagged, torn piece of silk—the unmistakable sapphire blue of Julian's tunic—stained with fresh, dark blood. Beside it lay three oily, black feathers of a raven.
"These were found within the restricted zone near the Vault of the Golden Chalice," Cornelius announced, his voice echoing like a funeral bell. "Tangled in the very shadows the Sovereign of Night swore would protect us."
A collective gasp rippled through the hall. Duke Hektor surged to his feet, his face a terrifying shade of purple. The loss of his only son had stripped away his political caution, leaving only a wounded beast.
"How much longer?" Hektor roared, his voice cracking. "How much longer will we tolerate this monster in our halls? My son is gone! Dragged into the dark by the very 'guards' we invited into our sanctuary!"
He looked at the council, his eyes wild. "Are you all so afraid of her ghosts that you will watch your own blood be spilled in the House of Light?"
Keibrant saw his opening. He stepped forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the grieving Duke. "Hektor is right," Keibrant said, his voice calm but carrying a lethal edge of authority. "We cannot let our fear invite a monster into our homes. We were told these shadows were a shield, but they have become a shroud."
He turned to the King, his gaze cold. "The noble children are our future. Her protection is worthless if there is no future left to protect. A kingdom of ghosts is no kingdom at all."
Eliosa rose from her seat, her eyes red-rimmed as she stood beside Keibrant. "I wanted to believe," she whispered, looking at the assembly. "I prayed for the darkness to be tamed. But the scriptures tell us: the shadow cannot change its nature. It does not protect; it only consumes."
Throughout the entire storm—the shouting, the accusations, the bloody evidence—Regina sat in her ministerial chair, as still as a statue carved from obsidian.
She did not argue. She did not flinch. She simply watched Keibrant with a piercing, violet intensity. She saw the trap. She saw the players. And most of all, she saw the man in the cloak who had done the pushing, hidden in the peripheral memory of her shadows.