The Grand Banquet Hall was a monument to excess. A cavernous space of ribbed vaults and flickering torchlight, it was dominated by the "Titan's Board"—a forty-foot slab of ancient, black-stained mahogany that had seated kings for three centuries. At the head sat the King of the West, his obsidian armor polished to a mirror finish, flanked by his generals who wore their scars like medals.
Priscilla sat at the far, cold end of the table, flanked by her father and Alistair. The air was thick with the scent of roasted stag, aged wine, and the sharp, metallic tang of noble condescension.
Baron Malakor , her father's brother and a man whose soul was as bloated as his waistline, stood up. He tapped a silver spoon against his crystal chalice, the chime cutting through the room like a shard of ice.
"A toast!" Malakor sneered, his eyes—filmy with greed and contempt—landing on Priscilla. "To the North. A land of smoke, soot, and... tragic disappointments. It is a pity that while the rest of the world advances in art, magic, and military splendor, House Vane-Crest produces nothing but rusted iron and a daughter who has the personality of a wet coal-sack."
The Western generals let out a low, rumbling chuckle. Lyra Zephyros, the Eastern prodigy, hid a mocking smile behind her silk fan, her pale eyes dancing with amusement.
"Tell me, Priscilla," Malakor continued, leaning over the table, his breath a foul mixture of wine and rot. "Do you even have a soul left? Or did you trade it for a bag of coal? You're a defect. A broken gear in a dying machine. Perhaps we should sell you to the South as a mute spice-grinder—at least then your silence would have a price."
The Duke's face flushed a deep, shamed purple. He stared at his plate, his shoulders slumped under the weight of the insult. The "Old Priscilla" would have already been trembling, her eyes brimming with the tears of the weak.
The New Priscilla didn't blink.
She set her silver fork down with a slow, deliberate clink that somehow sounded louder than Malakor's voice. She stood up, her dark grey silk gown shimmering like dragon scales under the torchlight.
"Uncle," she said, her voice a low, vibrating hum that seemed to resonate through the floorboards. "You've spent forty years talking, and yet you haven't said a single thing worth the oxygen you've wasted. You call me a broken gear?"
She reached the center of the massive table. Without warning, she dropped into a low, explosive stance. She didn't look like a lady; she looked like a coiled spring of iron. She drove her palms into the underside of the forty-foot mahogany slab.
CRASH.
With a roar of raw, kinetic power that defied her slender frame, Priscilla flipped the Titan's Board.
Crystal shattered into diamond-dust. Silver platters became flying shrapnel. The massive wooden slab rotated through the air in a slow, terrifying arc, slamming into Malakor and his cronies with the weight of a falling mountain. The Baron was pinned against the stone wall, his face turning a sickly white as wine, gravy, and shattered porcelain drenched his finery.
Priscilla didn't wait for the debris to settle. She leaped onto the tilted edge of the table, crouching over him like a panther. She grabbed him by the throat, her grip crushing his windpipe just enough to make his eyes bulge and his tongue swell.
"You want to talk about souls, you bloated leech?" she whispered, the silence in the hall so absolute you could hear the torches crackle. "My soul is made of the same fire that melts the iron you're so afraid of. If you ever open your mouth about my family again, I won't just flip a table. I will flip the world until people like you are nothing but the grease on my wheels."
She leaned in closer, her eyes glowing with a savage, predatory gold.
"And as for selling me? Uncle, I am the one who buys and sells. And right now, your life isn't worth a single lump of Northern coal."
She released him, and Malakor collapsed into a heap of wet silk and broken glass, gasping for air like a landed fish. Priscilla stood atop the wreckage of the table, her silhouette framed by the high Gothic windows, looking down at the King of the West.
"The dinner was boring anyway," she said, flicking a stray drop of wine from her sleeve with clinical indifference. "Shall we move to the courtyard? I have a 'telescope' I'd like to show you. It's much more articulate than my Uncle."