The room was quiet—too quiet.
Lit only by a pale orb suspended from the ceiling, the meeting chamber was cloaked in an unnatural stillness. Shadows loomed in every corner, stretching long and still as though they dared not move. Two long, velvet-lined sofas faced one another across a low table carved from gleaming obsidian. The air smelled faintly of incense, smoke, and secrets too old to name.
Three figures sat motionless on one of the sofas, cloaked in robes of deepest black. Each bearing no crest, no mark of allegiance—nothing but silence. Shadows clung to them like loyal dogs. Though their faces were hidden, their eyes gleamed beneath their hoods—bright with intellect, sharper than blades, and touched with something far colder.
The door creaked open.
