Chapter 58: The Eradication of Lineage
Garrick Sterling clutched his ivory walking staff so tightly that his liver spotted knuckles turned the color of chalk. His face flushed a violent, mottled crimson, and his small, cloudy gray eyes bulged with senile rage as he stared down at the yellowed parchment resting in Alaric's hands.
"Fake!" Garrick roared, his voice cracking into a harsh, vibrating screech that bounced off the high wooden rafters of the ancestral hall. "Forged paperwork! You bought off the municipal land registry and manufactured this trash! Clan elders, do not listen to this ungrateful orphan and his paid tricksters!"
Garrick looked around the room, expecting the fifty assembled branch directors and cousins to nod in fierce agreement with his decree. Instead, a heavy, unea
