Lucian
By dusk, the limestone corridors of the Blackwood wing had taken on that quiet, deliberate hum that always came before a storm.
Not the kind of storm that broke trees or rattled windows—one that rearranged power.
I stood in the secured boardroom on the Beta level, hands braced on the back of a chair, listening to the muted movement outside the door. Kieran had chosen the room for a reason: thick stone, warded seams, a private corridor with only one entrance, and a small antechamber where guards could intercept anyone before they got within earshot.
Malrec would already be working the palace like a slow poison—soft conversations, sympathetic looks, “reasonable” questions that sounded harmless until you realized they were planting doubt.
So we moved first.
No formal summons. No
