The Council Chamber of the High Spire was an arena of cold glass and sharp angles, suspended so high above the capital that the clouds often drifted through the open balconies. There were no masks here. These five had looked into each other's eyes for over thirty years, their faces etched with the shared lines of a long, slow betrayal.
They sat around a table of polished obsidian, not as guardians, but as stockholders in a kingdom they had been selling off piece by piece since before the King was born.
Valerius, the youngest-looking despite his sixty years, leaned back with a predator's ease. He was the uncle of the High King of Oros—the power across the Dead Sea—and Alistair's godfather. To the world, he was an advisor; to Oros, he was the silent blade in the heart of Hubriś.
