The great hall had fallen into a tense, suffocating silence.
Caleb stood at the head of the table, his eyes blazing with cold fury. The assembled Council members and high-ranking wolves shifted uneasily in their seats, their faces pale, their hands trembling. They had been summoned for an emergency meeting. They had been accused of complicity in a heinous crime. And now, they were about to face a reckoning they had never anticipated.
Caleb raised his hand.
A group of Praetorian guards entered the hall, carrying a massive stone basin between them. It was ancient—carved from obsidian, its surface etched with symbols that seemed to writhe and shift in the flickering torchlight. They placed it at the center of the room, its weight causing the marble floor to tremble.
The assembled wolves s
