The Council chamber was never silent by accident.
Silence here was engineered thick stone walls carved to swallow echoes, sigils etched into the floor to dampen heightened senses, wards tuned to suppress instinctual dominance. It was a room designed to remind even the strongest Alpha that power did not belong to one body alone.
This morning, the silence felt strained.
The high councilor sat at the head of the crescent table, fingers steepled, eyes fixed on the empty space where Riven Kaelthorne usually stood when summoned. Around him, the others shifted, some restless, some rigid, some quietly calculating.
“He hasn’t arrived,” Elder Ezekiel said at last, breaking the quiet. “That alone should concern us.”
“He wasn’t ordered to,” Elder Renna replied coolly. “This is an internal session
