The Hollow Council had convened in silence.
Thalia Virex tapped her gloved fingers on the polished surface of the dark table. A map of the outlying regions was unfurled before her, marked in red and inked with tally lines—squads lost, villages emptied, sightings of strange silhouettes near the edges of the Blackblood.
Serel Vaunt, draped in a high-collared violet cloak, leaned against his cane of bonewood. "It's been nine days," he said without preamble. "No word. No signal. Not a whisper from the Sovereign."
Across the table, Velmira Saan raised a brow, her voice sharp. "You speak of him as though he were any other man."
"He bled once," Serel replied. "All men who bleed can fall."
"Maybe," said Caelen, arms crossed, voice as flat as stone. "But if he did fall, we'd have felt it. All of us."
Thalia glanced his way. "That kind of certainty is dangerous."
"And cowardice," Caelen returned, "is worse."
A hush settled across the table.
