Ashes of Doctrine
The Council chambers, carved deep into the obsidian root-vaults of Hollowspire, had not known silence in centuries. The air was always alive with whispers, with calculations spoken through veils and tongues burned clean of heritage. But tonight, silence reigned—draped like a shroud over the ancient tribunal seat.
Archseer Bellan Vire stood at the pinnacle of the Circle of Nine, his robes frayed at the hem, his mind bent taut against the storm of news unraveling across the carved stone table. Light from the braziers flickered along the faces of his peers, but it gave no warmth.
The assassins were dead. The Maw had been reclaimed by a dreamwalker. And the wolf was no longer hiding.
"We underestimated them," hissed Councillor Ilwen, her voice brittle and dry. "Again."
"No," Bellan said, voice cold. "You underestimated them. I warned you of Alaric's rebirth. Of the Dreammarked. You chose silence. You chose tradition."
"Tradition," growled Marvek—head of Blood Doctrine—"is what held our empire together when wolves still ruled the darkwoods."
"And now one of those wolves has returned," Bellan snapped, "with fire in his breath and allies in the deep. If we do not move now, we won't have an empire to preserve."
An aged figure leaned forward. Councillor Reithe, the only one who still bore the original skin—gray, cracked like old bark. His voice, when it came, was smoke over ash.
"Then we burn what cannot be bound."
Gasps circled the table.
"You suggest purging the Ridgefall line?" Ilwen asked.
"I suggest unleashing what we caged."
There was a moment of heavy, reverent dread.
They all knew what he meant.
The Vaults of the First.
The place where the Council kept its oldest secrets. Its unmentionables. Not relics or weapons—but bound spirits. Failed creations. Forgotten gods.
Bellan clenched his fists. "Those vaults were sealed for a reason."
"And that reason has died," Reithe replied softly. "The Dreamwalker walks the Maw. The Wolf leads the lost. The outer territories murmur rebellion. We no longer live in a world we control—we stand on the edge of a world that remembers itself."
Another Councillor, Jareth, slammed his palm onto the table.
"Then let's remind them what forgetting costs."
Arguments bloomed like wildfire, but beneath it, a consensus formed—poisoned and iron-bound.
The Council would answer the rise of Alaric and Mira not with diplomacy, not with assassins or persuasion.
But with terror.
They began drafting a resurrection of Protocol Null—a war doctrine not used since the Purge Epoch. Its purpose: scorched earth. Total erasure of opposing bloodlines. They would not play at borders or ideology. They would dissolve the world beneath their enemies' feet.
In the lower sanctum, servants were already sharpening knives not made for flesh, but memory.
And in the very deepest cellars, the chains around a silent vault shuddered once. Just once.
Then silence returned.
But not peace.