Page 13

12

KHORLAR

The air in the Blade Council chamber was heavy with the metallic tang of old power and fresh tension. It felt less like a council room and more like a cage where predators circled, waiting for the first sign of weakness.

I stalked in, each scale pulled tight against my frame, my control a physical effort, an iron discipline clamped down hard. Every instinct I possessed screamed danger. This wasn't procedure. This was a battlefield disguised by tradition.

The circular chamber was packed, the air vibrating with suppressed hostility. Darrokar stood near the heart of it, a towering presence at the curved stone table. His obsidian scales seemed to drink the light. I could feel the pressure radiating from him. Around him, the others took their positions. Some faces were stone, unreadable masks hiding gods-knew-what agendas. Others shifted, eyes flicking, calculating—the stink of politics clinging to them.

Rath caught my eye. A grim nod passed between us, a shared current of understanding. He could feel it too. Vyne sat beside him. Across from them, Nyx's gray-and-white marked scales stood out. He was the Shield. Pragmatic. Solid.

His support, if given, would carry weight.

But it was the figure opposite Darrokar that sent a shard of ice scraping down my spine.

Karyseth.

Her silver-streaked scales caught the light like honed blades, throwing back fractured reflections. Her robes, heavy with the symbols of the Forge Temple, whispered against the stone with every calculated shift of her weight. She was power. Cold. Predatory. Behind her, her acolytes stood unnervingly still, yellow robes stark against the dark stone, their eyes burning with a fervor that made my teeth ache.

This wasn't a meeting. It was an ambush dressed in ritual.

"Stone Fist honors us," Karyseth's voice sliced through the tense silence, ancient as the deep rock beneath us, cold as a starless night. Her gaze, sharp and merciless, raked over me, lingering—deliberately—on the still-raw score across my shoulder where the Ignarath bastard's blade had marked me. "Fresh from dealing out justice, it seems."

Every head turned. The weight of their collective stare was a physical pressure. I met it head-on, moving to my place at the table without faltering. Let them look. Let them see the price paid for touching what was mine.

"Our esteemed Council member has been … occupied," she continued, the curve of her lips showing just a hint of fang. "While one of our guests now lies cooling."

"An uninvited guest," Zarvash cut in smoothly, leaning forward from his seat. His bronze scales caught the light, his voice deceptively mild. "Who trespassed where he had no right."

Karyseth's eyes narrowed to slits. "Blood spilled on Scalvaris soil demands accounting by the Temple. The Temple does not play favorites."

A low growl rumbled deep. "The accounting is simple," I bit out, the words rough. "He tried to take what is mine. He paid the price."

A ripple went through the chamber. Whispers hissed like steam escaping rock fissures. Good. Let the claim echo. Let it become undeniable fact carved into the very stone around us.

"And that," Karyseth said, turning her sharp gaze back to the full Council, her voice rising slightly, "brings us to the poison in our midst." She gestured dismissively, though not towards me. "These humans. Outsiders. They bring only chaos. Their very presence invites Ignarath aggression."

"The humans did nothing to summon Plaktish," Darrokar’s authority slammed down, silencing the chamber. A blade forged in command. "The Temple knows this."

"Do not presume to tell me what the Temple knows," Karyseth shot back, her tail lashing the stone once, a sharp crack in the heavy air. "Strange beings from the sky. Possessing knowledge we lack. Bonding with our strongest." Her eyes swept the room, landing briefly, pointedly, on Darrokar, Rath, Vyne, then me. "Altering the balance. We can end this threat without more bloodshed by simply surrendering them."

"Surrender?" Rath snarled, leaning forward, his scales flushing a darker, furious red. The word was an obscenity there. "You mean sacrifice."

"I mean the survival of Scalvaris." Karyseth’s reply was ice against his fire. "One city against its rival. These humans are not our people."

The chamber fractured. Voices clashed, raw and angry. Krazith always bowed to the oldest, harshest traditions. Morvar, whose lands bordered the Ignarath, let fear oil his words. Brezath, ever the opportunist, smelled power in the Temple's stance. Their agreement was loud, insistent.

Others held back, watching, waiting. The calculation in their eyes sickened me. This wasn't about right or wrong for them. It was about advantage.

But the line held. Darrokar was immovable. Vyne's loyalty to his own human mate, Selene, was absolute. Nyx's warrior honor demanded protection once offered. Zarvash, the Strategist, saw the trap in appeasement, even if he was normally an adherent of the temple. Rath's usual recklessness was tempered into fierce, unexpected conviction.

And me. I was rooted to the spot. Unyielding. A wall of stone and fury.

The noise swelled, a cacophony threatening to shatter the fragile control. Darrokar raised a hand, but the momentum was with the dissenters, fueled by Karyseth’s burning fire.

I stepped forward again, into the charged space before the table. Fangs bared. The clamor faltered, died down. Expectation hung heavy, thick as volcanic dust.

"No human," I declared, pitching my voice low but letting it resonate with the bedrock certainty I felt in my bones, "will be traded. Not one. The warrior code forbids bargaining lives like chattel."

"You speak of code?" Karyseth challenged, turning fully to face me, her presence a suffocating wave of ancient power. "While shattering tradition? Your human was targeted because you claimed her outside Temple sanction!"

The accusation struck sparks against my pride. "My claim needed no blessing," I growled, the sound ripped from my chest. "It was made by right of blood. Bone. Instinct." My wings shifted, restless, scraping faintly against my back plates.

"Animal instinct," she hissed, dismissing centuries of warrior truth. "Undermining the careful order."

"The order was broken when Ignarath sent a shadow-operative to steal her," I shot back, planting my feet wider. "That wasn't politics. It was an act of war."

"Stone Fist is right," Zarvash added, rising to stand near me, a surprising but welcome solidarity. "The attempted abduction proves the Ignarath are not acting in good faith. They want something specific from these humans."

"The Strategist speaks like an apostate!" Karyseth snapped, eyes flashing. "Placing outsiders above your own kind?"

A harsh laugh scraped my throat. "Safety? Appeasement buys only illusion, Priestess. Never safety."

"Enough!" Darrokar’s command wasn't just loud, it was a physical force that slammed into the room. His wings flared, catching the light, a controlled display of the inferno beneath his scales. Every eye locked onto him. "The Temple demands action. The Council requires deliberation. We cannot act until we possess facts."

"We demand a vote!" one of Karyseth’s zealots cried out, stepping forward rashly. "The Temple?—"

"The Temple advises," Darrokar cut him off, his voice dropping to a lethal softness, eyes narrowing. "The Council decides. And I determine when that decision is made." His wings flared wider, undeniably dominant. "We adjourn. Review strategic implications. All of them. Before any vote."

Karyseth’s face tightened, her silver scales seeming to darken. Suppressed fury radiated from her like heat off scorched rock. "The Sacred Flame burns hot, Darrokar. Some threats demand a response."

"And they will receive it," he countered, implacable. "Once we understand why. Why Plaktish is so desperate. Why that specific human was targeted." His gaze flickered to me. A silent acknowledgment that shook me deeper than the open conflict. "There is more at play here."

Strategic brilliance. Buying time. Time to think, gather strength, shore up defenses. My respect for Darrokar solidified into something harder, sharper.

"Word arrived as I entered," Vyne spoke into the sudden quiet, his deep voice resonating. "Another Ignarath envoy approaches. Formal. Escorted."

The air thickened again. A formal envoy. Escorted. This wasn't a probe. It was pressure. A demand backed by implicit threat.

"Then we prepare," Darrokar concluded, drawing himself up. The Warrior Lord incarnate. "Assess the defenses. Identify weaknesses. This Council reconvenes when I call it." His gaze swept the chamber, a final command. "Dismissed."

Karyseth and her acolytes swept out first, their departure leaving a chilly wake. The other Council members fragmented, hushed, urgent conversations breaking out. Lines were being drawn in the stone, allegiances hardening like cooling lava.

"You gather powerful enemies, Stone Fist," Zarvash murmured, pausing beside me, his voice low, meant only for me. "And powerful allies."

I gave a curt nod, my throat tight. "So has she." The name felt raw, scraped from somewhere vital inside me. Hawk. My vrakasha.

"Indeed." His gaze was shrewd, penetrating. "Keep her close. Whatever Plaktish truly seeks … I suspect your mate is pivotal."

My claws flexed, scraping against the polished stone. A low growl threatened again. "They will not touch her."

"Of that," Zarvash said, a flicker of something almost like a smile touching his lips, "I have no doubt. But blades alone won't win this fight. Stay sharp."

He moved off, leaving me standing there, the echoes of the chamber settling around me like chains. The political maneuvering, the veiled threats, the shifting alliances—it set my teeth on edge. It wasn't clean. Not like battle.

But at the heart of the storm, unwavering, was her. Hawk. My mate. The impossible human who had torn through the stone and scale I'd built around myself.

I turned, stalking from the chamber, feeling eyes track my exit. The tension of the meeting clung like suffocating ash, but beneath it, a different heat burned—fierce, absolute.

Let them come. Temple zealots. Ignarath shadows. Scheming Council members.

They would not take her.