The room had gone so quiet I could hear my own pulse in my ears, and I felt Kael's hand tighten around mine as Thorne's words settled over the assembly hall like something physical.
"What do you mean, the last time someone tried," I said. "Rhea told us the third pairing survived. That they're the only ones the Hollow never destroyed."
"They survived, yes," Thorne said. "You don't know what survival cost them, or what happened after." He looked older suddenly, the careful authority he'd carried all morning stripped away to something closer to grief. "I was there. Not as a councilman. As a boy, barely old enough to understand what I was watching. My mother was Ironveil. My father was Crestwood. I am the last living child of the third pairing Rhea told you about."
The words landed and didn
