Silence presses in. The Wildspont pulses harder beneath us.
“You want clarity?” Vira asks, and something sharper enters her tone. “Nytheria is rotting. The Wildspont has been destabilizing for decades. You inherited decay.”
“That does not justify trafficking Purna magic wielders,” I say.
Several elders inhale sharply. She does not deny it.
“Sacrifice has always been part of land-binding,” she snaps.
“No,” I say quietly. “Consent has.”
That is when she drops the mask.
“You think your bond to Velcryn did not fracture the ley lines?” she demands. “You think you are not the destabilizing force?”
The chamber ripples with unease. The doors behind me open. I do not turn. I feel him. Zeidan’s presence slides into the room like shadow crossing water, controlled, quiet, and lethal.
Vira sees him. Her lips curve faintly.
“Ah,” she says. “The dethroned prince.”
The insult is bait. He does not respond. Neither do I.
“You fed the blight,” I say steadily. “You supplied Malrend.”
That name does it. The elders react. And Vira’s composure fractures.
“You are children,” she says. “Both of you. Playing at governance while the roots decay.”
Her magic ignites first, not as reckless explosion, but as a precise strike. Green-black energy lashes toward the artifact on the table. I move before I think. Root magic surges through me, intercepting her strike midair. The collision cracks the stone beneath us, power splintering outward in sharp arcs.
The chamber erupts.
Vines tear through the marble floor, spiraling upward in violent coils. Vira’s counterstrike shreds two instantly, blight slicing through living root with surgical precision. Then Zeidan steps forward. For a heartbeat, he hesitates. Not from fear, from decision, and then I realize what he is about to do.
Nytherian law is clear about foreign displays of dominant magic within sacred chambers. Velcryn war-forms are considered provocation. Threat posture. Declaration. He knows that. I feel him weigh it through the bond.
Then he chooses.
Shadow unfurls behind him in a violent rush of displaced air. Gasps ripple through the chamber as his wings snap into existence, vast and obsidian, stretching nearly wall to wall.They do not emerge gently. They claim space. Light fractures against their silken span, drinking in the green-gold glow of the Wildspont until the entire council floor is divided between root and darkness.
Several elders stumble backward. One drops to a knee. No Vrakken has ever displayed full war-form inside the Nytherian council chamber. Not in alliance. Not in peace. Not ever.
The temperature shifts. The sacred wards flare in startled recognition, uncertain whether to defend or yield. The Wildspont pulses harder beneath us, reacting not in rejection, but in awareness.
When Vira launches her second blast, it never reaches the elders. His wing cuts through it midair, shadow swallowing blight in a violent hiss of evaporating magic. The impact shudders through the stone, but he does not move.
He stands between the coven and destruction. Not as prince. Not as emissary. But as my chosen. Murmurs spread like wildfire.
“He was stripped?—”
“Velcryn has no authority here?—”
“This is a threat?—”
“It is protection,” my mother breathes, staring.
Because they see it now.He is not attacking. He is shielding. His wings arch forward, not to dominate the chamber, but to form a barrier around the elders as Vira’s blight lashes outward in widening arcs. Every strike she throws meets shadow and dies.
