Page 22 of Orc’s Hex

“It won’t go wrong.”

“I need the sentence finished in case I’m wrong about that.”

He considers her a moment. The corridor is quiet, the noise of the assembling Hall a low murmur behind the stone, and there is exactly enough time left for this and not one second more.

“If it goes wrong,” he says, “you’ll still have every level of this hold your work requires. That decision isn’t council business. It’s mine, and it’s already made, regardless of what happens in that room.”

Something in her expression shifts—not relief, not quite, something more like a door she’d been holding shut easing a fraction on its hinges.

“All right,” she says.

“All right,” he agrees.

Neither of them moves for one more second than the moment strictly requires. Then he turns for the Great Hall doors, and she falls in a half-step behind him, not because she needs to be behind him but because that’s the position from which she can see the whole room, and he has learned in five days exactly what that means about how she thinks.

He enters at the appointed hour. Not early, not late. He is a clanlord walking into a challenge on his own floor, and the walk matters.

Ziva is at the far left wall, standing where she can see the dais, the assembly, and both exits. She’s been watching him since he came through the door.

He doesn’t acknowledge her. He takes the dais, sets his hands on the rail, and looks at the assembly.

Elder Brakka rises without being asked.

Brakka is the oldest surviving elder on the senior council—old enough that Blood Law tradition has calcified in him from principle into identity. He rises with the authority of a man who has used the word precedent as a weapon for so long he’s forgotten it can also be a shield.

“Clanlord.” His voice carries without effort. “This assembly speaks with one concern.”

He doesn’t.

Drazhul reads the room. Brakka, four senior advisors to the left, three mid-level officers who’ve aligned with the traditionalist faction this year. Garrok Stonefist at the rear wall with his arms crossed. Varek at the right edge, saying nothing, watching everything.

Varek’s silence isn’t neutrality. It’s Varek waiting to see how Drazhul handles this before he commits his own position. He’ll back a decision once it’s made. He won’t make it for you.

“The curse-eater has destabilized this hold,” Brakka says. “Three days since her arrival: a floor breach in the Great Hall, a confirmed surge in the clanlord’s private chambers, and a breach of the catacomb restriction by the contractor herself. If this is professional conduct⁠—“

“It is.”

Drazhul says it quietly—the kind of quiet that doesn’t need volume to land in the gaps between someone else’s sentences. Brakka stops.

“She went to the catacombs because the curse she was contracted to remove is in the catacombs.” He lets his gaze move across the room—the alarmed faces, the skeptical ones, Garrok’s arms dropping a fraction. “She found evidence of active maintenance of the Betrayal Sigil by at least one practitioner currently operating inside these walls. That is what she found. That is what she was doing.”

“The floor breach⁠—“

“Is the Betrayal Sigil responding to proximity between myself and someone capable of reading it. The first time that has occurred in recorded clan history. Which means it is the first time we have had a practitioner in this hold capable of doing something about what is in our foundation.”

Brakka’s jaw tightens. Drazhul has closed every gap before he can fill it.

“The surge⁠—“

“Is mine. As it has always been mine. The curse-eater sustained no injury. She did not retreat. She did not break contract.” He looks at the elder. “What she did was her job. I intend to let her continue doing it.”

One of the senior advisors rises from the left bench. Maren Ash—decades on the council, spent most of them finding the diplomatic phrasing for what Brakka wants said more bluntly. She’s better at this than he is.

“Clanlord. The concern isn’t her professional performance. The concern is precedent.” She keeps her tone measured. “A contracted witch operating under personal protection, with access to the lower crypt levels and documented proximity to the clanlord during a surge event. If the bloodline succession⁠—“

“There is no bloodline succession to protect.” Flat. “That is the problem I hired her to solve. I’m not interested in protecting a succession that doesn’t exist. I’m interested in making it possible.”

Ash sits down.