Death arrives. Mortals pause.

  They drape themselves in black. They call the names of the dead in reverence. They weep. They mourn.

  For a day. Perhaps two.

  Then hunger returns—the insatiable kind of hunger: for power.

  But power does not grieve. It waits— like a predator— patient enough to let sorrow tire itself before it feeds.

  For the circle in crimson, grief is the mask worn when it's too soon to smile.

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  The Veil mourns — 11 months before The Convergence

  ──────────── ? ────────────

  The courtyard settled in uneasy silence as Wynard and Bantugan followed Grex’s lead toward the castle steps, their pride smoldering but now restrained. Not many could have stopped that duel before it began, and fewer still with nothing but their commanding presence.

  From a balcony above, Loti had been watching.

  When Grex stepped between the two men, she caught the flicker of a smile on Dayang Marilag’s lips—quick and wicked, a smile too satisfied for someone merely watching. It would have slipped past most eyes.

  Not Loti’s.

  Her fingers tightened along the stone railing. The marble cool beneath her palm. Her eyes fixed on Marilag who no longer look at the duelists. She looked at Grex.

  And she looked pleased.

  A flush crept high across Loti’s pale cheeks before she could stop it. She straightened at once, composing her herself to someone worthy of the balcony she stood upon.

  Below, Grex did not look up.

  Marilag’s smile lingered a heartbeat too long before vanishing into courtly indifference.

  Loti did not miss that either.

  Grex, oblivious, guided the Councilors up the stairs, his cloak brushing the air with cedar scent. Behind them, the castle guards exhaled in relief.

  Grex did not release Wynard and Bantugan until they reached the vaulted doors of the Council chamber. Whatever words they meant to hurl at one another were swallowed in the hush that waited beyond. Pride had to bow at least that far, even for show. He left them to the stewards and turned away, his jaw tight, cloak still trailing cedar scent through the corridor.

  Grex knew what he’d be walking into soon enough—crimson cloaks and voices, each one straining to make their words sound heavier than the shadows pressing at the door. That's what councils do best.

  Montzy, who was left alone in Grex’s chamber, lingered at the window only a moment longer before slipping out. He learned what happened to Iakob and the thought of him was sharper than any curiosity about banners and arrivals. The boy would need company more than the Council did. His boots carried him toward the infirmary.

  Outside, the air stirred again, this time with a sound like the beating of a hundred wings. Shadows fell across the courtyard, and even the banners seemed to pause. From the clouds descended the delegation from Ashkalorn, winged figures alighting as though they had stepped straight out of an ancient legend. Their feathers vanished the instant their boots struck stone, leaving only the echo of the flight behind. At their head was Grand Meister Gideon Olrric, broad as a fortress wall and gleaming like a statue come to life, the golden clasp at his cloak burning against the sky.

  The last shadows of wings melted in the air as Gideon Olrric strode forward. The guards at the gate saluted, spears banged the floor twice.

  “Where’s Grex?” Gideon asked.

  “At the Council chamber already, Grand Meister,” one of the guards answered.

  A surprised laugh rumbled from Gideon’s chest, “Earlier than expected? Hah.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  At his side, Trin gave no smile, only lifted two fingers in a sharp, practiced snap. In a heartbeat, their cloaks of crimson shimmered into being—the mark of The Council—draping perfectly across their shoulders in graceful synchronicity.

  Together, the twins ascended the stairs. Gideon shining like a hero carved from stone, Trin walking in his shadow but setting the pace, nonetheless.

  The courtyard swelled with motion once more. Delegations streamed through the arched gates, each bearing colors bright enough to challenge the sunset. Servants hurried ahead with banners and scrolls; guards fell into ordered silence. The air, thick with incense and pride, moved toward a single space—The Council's chamber.

  Wolfpit swallowed their noise until all that remained were footsteps climbing higher. Ahead, another sound stirred: the ebb and flow of emotion, debate, ambition, the old machinery of power turning once more.

  Yet beneath it all, a different tide was rising.

  The Council chamber was already restless before the proceedings had even begun. Voices tangled in the vaulted air, each eager to claim ground before a word was formally spoken. Cloaks swooshed, chairs scraped, hands carved invisible arguments into the air. The sound was less a debate and more a storm, and at its eye sat Hortew.

  From his elevated seat, the Supreme Grand Meister did not join the noise. His gaze drifted instead: across the circle of councilors, to where Grex stood silent against the stone, over the empty chairs yet to be filled… the empty chairs that may remain empty… His thoughts strayed further still, to a boy lying pale in the infirmary, and to the shadows that had pressed against the walls of Wolfpit the night before.

  On the far side, Lucient Armont also remained apart. Like Grex, he had not yet taken his place among the circle. Instead, he sat a pace removed, his staff angled across his knees, eyes shifting between Hortew and the swelling tide of voices. The old conjurer’s silence weighed more than the loudest claim being shouted across the table.

  Grex’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer. Lucient’s moon god-spirit, Virett, was nowhere in sight. At least not in the visible world, but Grex could almost feel the echo of his presence, cautious and half-withheld. Spirits of that kind rarely hid unless they’d seen too much.

  He wondered if Virett, too, had felt the stirring beyond the Veil, the same pulse Syl had sensed in the night. Or if the ancient prayer they'd spoken had reached further than Grex realized, touching every moon-spirit still bound to this world.

  Amidst Grex's silent contemplation, a strong thud caught everyone's attention. The Council had not yet formally convened but Lord Garrick Vale suddenly set a scroll on the table.

  "We've been seated long enough," he said loudly. "There are matters that will not keep. If the remaining delegates are delayed, that is their misfortune, not ours."

  "Patience is also a matter, Lord Vale," said Grand Meister Zangru Fenglai, without looking up from his own documents, his tone pleasant enough to be a reprimand.

  Vale's jaw tightened. Several cloaks shifted.

  Across the circle, Wynard Atmos said nothing. He had not spoken since taking his seat, which was somehow louder than speaking. His dark eyes moved once— slowly, deliberately, to where Bantugan sat three chairs removed. Bantugan did not return the look immediately. When he did, it lasted exactly long enough to communicate everything and resolved nothing. Then both men looked away, as if the exchange had never happened.

  The scroll Vale had placed on the table remained where it was, untouched by anyone else, like a gauntlet no one wanted to be seen picking up first.

  "If it's not the agenda item about trade corridors, I suggest you take that away," said Zangru. Then voices layered in. About the Conjuring Academies, sanctions to forbidden relics, a counter-proposal about local Councils, and a lot more. Someone even raised the matter of the empty seat—not Cedran's, not yet, but a procedural question of quorum—and the room briefly fractured into three simultaneous arguments about what constituted a proper convening.

  Through it all, Hortew did not speak.

  The Supreme Grand Meister's silence had a texture to it today. Not absence, but pressure.

  The chamber's noise peaked.

  Then, with the long groan of ancient hinges, the great doors opened. The noise faltered. And the room remembered, all at once, how to be quiet.

  Lady Evelyn Tareth stepped inside. Her plain dark garb beneath the Council Cloak was a stark contrast to its embroidered finery. Even in crimson, grief has a way of dulling color. The sorrow in her face struck deeper than any ceremonial flourish. Her steps were slow, deliberate, her eyes fixed on Hortew. She bowed once, small but certain.

  Hortew nodded in return, then brought his staff down against the stone. The echo rolled through the chamber, silencing the last murmurs, even the very walls obeyed.

  When Evelyn raised her head, her voice carried without strain, cutting clean through the heavy quiet. “Before we proceed,” she said, “I must inform the Council that Grand Meister Cedran Morvane passed away yesterday evening.”

  The words struck, shattering what calm remained.

  Hortew did not speak at once. Nobody did. Instead, Hortew lifted a single finger.

  The crimson of the Council cloaks bled into black, each fold darkening in perfect unison. The color of mourning. The color of memory. The silence that followed was heavier than the noise it replaced.

  Grex felt the weight settle in his chest. His hand pressed against the small booklet he slid inside his vest earlier. Evelyn took her seat slowly, her fingers grazing the carved wood of the chair beside hers, Cedran’s chair, as though her touch might conjure him back.

  For a long moment, no one moved, no one spoke, just gazed at the columns, the spaces, the walls. Then Lucient rose from where he sat apart, his staff striking against the stone. His voice was low, but it carried.

  “His seat," Lucient said, "cannot remain empty.”

  The words hung like a challenge, or a promise.

  And perhaps that is the truest face of power. Not the cloaks, not the titles, not even the dead they mourn—but the hunger to claim the chair they leave behind.

  And the echo of that hunger will linger. Somewhere between grief and ambition, another chair was already being measured.